


Bang Your Head (Mental Health)

by Oresteia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Dark, Deaf Character, Drama, F/M, Friendship, Happy Ending, Human Experimentation, Love/Hate, Psychological Torture, Supernatural Elements, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-24 07:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oresteia/pseuds/Oresteia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title from a song by Quiet Riot; A Gift For: kl_shipper1 (at livejournal) for be_compromised holiday exchange.</p><p>Summary/Prompt Used:<br/>4) Who are they, besides their job, besides the assassins they're trained to be? Show me who Clint and Natasha really are and what they do when they're not on a mission-- when they have some time to decompress and be themselves. Basically, Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff vs. Clint and Natasha.<br/>Things I like: Banter, happy endings, deaf!Clint, team!shawarma, team antics, UST and/or RST, (romance with) reasonable amounts of angst. AUs. Movieverse. Clint showing off his musical abilities (and Natasha having them too).<br/>I don't want to receive: Dub-con/non-con. Torture. Character death. Unhappy endings. Lots of smut. Non-C/N.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to My Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> The story is kind of told in an disjointed format. It’s almost built like Memento or Pulp Fiction (nowhere near that level of brilliance though). The beginning gives the ending away to some extent. There’s more after the beginning but it tells it all final conclusion (that is left open ended slightly). Time jumps quickly but the story is written linear, so that none of the time jumps are so misplace that they don’t make sense. Also, this story involves Phil Coulson as a general important character. The heart of it is about Clint and Natasha but really it’s him as their third (not romantically in the least, brotherly, friendly).
> 
> No beta... and there's art also by me.
> 
> Anyway, I don't own anything, the entire creation belongs to Marvel, Disney, and Stan Lee. OC is just a minor villain who cares about that?
> 
> And not that it matters but I would like to point out that not only do write very stream of consciousness (like James Joyce or Virgina Woolf but nowhere near as well)-- but English and me have a spotty relationship. I speak it better than most Europeans so I've been told but it's one of those you win some, you lose some and in the grammar department it's definitely lose some. So there's no beta and I did the best I could. Keep in mind with all this said, I am not a writer. I suck actually so if you want genius, you're probably in the wrong place but do enjoy.

(August 2013)

“Barton? Barton? CLINT!”

Clint forced himself awake he was covered in blood and sweat in a jail cell that smelt like piss and gunpowder residue. Part of him thought he must be seeing things because he was dead.

The other part one of him, the one that recgonized that he should be in pain. The one realized he was seeing things in his sleep not his awaken status knew otherwise.

It didn't stop him from saying his anyway, “Coulson?”

\--

(May 2008)

_“Excuse me but you can direct me to nearest ATM?” Clint asked in an exaggerated form of what he liked to call the stupid english speaking only tourist._

_He probably had overdone it but the man in the striped pin suit and the tinted green sun lenses with black base stopped and actually answered his question, “Down the block and to your right.”_

_Clint smirked and bid him a nice day like he was the grateful no longer lost tourist. Relived enough to place his hands on the stranger, shake his hand, and throw his arms out like he wanted a hug. All was right in the boy next door visiting the foreign land's world._

_His english was top notch but then again most terrorists spoke perfect English._

_Too bad this one did not think to check his wallet or assume that maybe the friendly rugged but still boyish looking tourist might be a petty thief._

_Money, a small dose of white drugs in a plastic baggie (possibly heroin maybe something else), fake ID's, fake passport, and a few credit cards-- standard issue terrorist with too much money to burn._

_Natasha walked over to him, “Anything interesting?”_

_Clint took the money and handed it to a beggar on the street, “Nothing worth mentioning.”_

_“Keeping the drugs for Coulson to have analyzed?” she asked._

_“Nah, we came here to kill the bastard anyway. I just wanted to run prints on the ID see if maybe we could find his maker,” Clint remarked._

_Natasha snorted at the sight of the little white powder baggie, “Why do all terrorists do drugs?” sarcasm dripping from her tone._

_“Well if you're going to kill a bunch of people with illegal automatic weapons might as well try the good shit. Probably won't live long enough to enjoy retirement anyway.”_

_“Want to get a room?” she asked a minute later._

_Clint looked over his shoulder as if to make sure no one was listening in on them, “Why not? I've been dying to use that pack of condoms in my wallet.”_

_Thirty seconds later, their hotel exploded. Coulson who had just headed outside, went flying through the air. Nat and Clint went running towards the danger ahead._

\---

(May 3rd 2013)

“Clint!”

He shot up instantly, panting heavily, eyes still unfocused-- Clint quickly surveyed the room as if he had been kidnapped or interrogated. Finding his enemy only for it to come up empty.

Not exactly the true anymore but certainly at time or another it had been the truth. Though that was a year ago to be honest. Manhattan had basically ended his super secret spy career and Natasha's for that matter.

Sometimes he thought maybe he missed it more than she did. Nights like this? Natasha probably missed it more than him.

Clint turned to his side and finger spelled nightmare to Natasha.

Natasha nodded and curled back on her side.

Wasn't exactly true, their mission in Monaco had actually turned out quite well-- it was Coulson that was his recurring nightmare.

Their lives were vastly different now. Then and Now might as have been the many lives of Natasha Romanova and Clint Barton. What had not changed however was field!agents vs. power!couple.

When working, Clint had near perfect hearing: he spoke, he sang (on pitch because he genetically had tone) and he spoke seven different languages. He was all American good boy that turned on people and killed them.

Natasha was a near emotionless killer with a habit of changing identities and jobs on command. She was the exotic beauty that men and sometimes women desired. The angel turned reaper on command.

In reality, Clint was a borderline forty something deaf man from Iowa who lost his hearing late enough in life to speak English without an accent and could sing because of genetics. His all American tourist was a joke because sports were so not his thing. In fact, generally even watching sports tended to bore him senseless.

Clint was more of a Food Network kind of guy-- and sometimes a closet drama television watcher. He may or may not have owned the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Possibly. Also, Angel (but it wasn't nearly as good) and he really liked Dollhouse. Additionally, drinking was not something he enjoyed off the clock (Agent Barton however was best friends with Whiskey and Beer) nor was gambling (another vice Agent Barton: undercover American enjoyed).

Natasha was anything short of emotionless when they were home. She wasn't typical but Natasha very much was a girl. Between Coulson and Hill (and Barton himself), they had actually managed to make her into a somewhat normal member of society.

Thursday's were spa day/girl day's out where Natasha would disappear and come back with clean nails, painted toe nails and a new pair of shoes. Clint would make dinner, and they would spend the night watching Grey's Anatomy.

She kind of liked being a housewife when they were home. Decorating the house during the holidays was by far her favorite form of entertainment. Clint usually joked that the house threw up decorations and Natasha had been one to feed it more crap.

Natasha had also named their dog-- Princess. Because apparently deep down on the inside, she was actually that girly. Though getting her admit it would never happen (but it was Clint who bought the female Yorkie).

Off the clock, they were a regular couple but on the field, they were anything but a couple. At least not since Budapest. It was their breaking point and burned them as working fake romantically or otherwise in the field. Though ironically it caused them to finally stop being stupid and move in together back in New York.

They owned an apartment around 121st street near Columbia University campus. Natasha had been undercover as a graduate student and broke up a ring of minor criminal enterprise a few years ago, the school offered them the apartment for free.

The real divide was not so much in lifestyle (these were things ingrained in both of them, sides shown carefully but always at the core of themselves true) but in their nightmares where everything blended into one great greek tragedy where everyone dies and no one would ever be safe again.

Natasha was always guilty of sin in dreams and Clint was always haunted by memories-- by Phil Coulson.

\--

The phone was blinking-- they had a phone call. Clint got up and walked over to the phone turning it on.

“Hey Barton, can you hear me now?” Tony asked sarcastically knowing Clint wasn't looking at the screen yet.

Clint rolled his eyes when Natasha motioned that Tony had been talking to him, “You know I can't hear you, right?”

“Ah but you can lip read my deaf bird.”

Natasha then told him what Tony had said, “Nat's hanging up now! Something about annoying billionaires mocking handicap people… oh wait she means me.”

“Wait!” Tony cried as Natasha made a dramatic effort of turning off the video feed, “Shawarma-- one year birthday date. Big party. Bring all your friends.”

“We have friends?” Clint asked deadpan to Natasha.

“We do, their names are Agent Hill and Director Fury,” she retorted.

“Cold,” Tony protested.

Clint smiled, “We'll be there but uh you gotta bring Thor. He's not riding in my car again. Not after last time.”

Tony shuddered visibly, Thor was a very playful drunk (not that he was drunk but he made a good case for acting like a drunk Asgardian might actually be in life). A very playful drunk in a new car-- well it tended to end badly for the new car.

“Fine, Fine. He dents anything worth something-- your ass is paying for it.”

“HA!”

Natasha snorted off to the side.

“I heard that Romanov, unlike your spouse there- I'm not deaf.”

“I saw her,” Clint taunted him.

“Show off,” Tony remarked jokingly.

It might have been year since Loki tried to take over the world but it was three months ago that Thor had returned to Earth to save Stark from some evil villain when the other members of the team could not get to him. His sort of girlfriend, Jane had been rather pissed off that not once but twice Thor had used whatever power his father had to send him there and both times he failed to see her.

Clint had met her, Jane kind of scared him. In a way that most women were not capable of. Intellectually she was beautiful as a person she was kind of unstable.

Darcy, her assistant was more to Clint's liking- less accidentally crazy and more intentionally crazy. Like Natasha but the exact opposite. Possibly Clint was a hypocrite.

To make up for it though, Thor had been in town since then. He had decided he would not be returning to Asgard-- at least until Jane found a way to send him back and forth with ease. Which meant maybe forever. Who the hell knew anymore?

With him back they were a team, a full fledged BFF kind of team. Ironically Tony might be his favorite. They had almost nothing in common whatsoever but they got along great.

Enough that Clint had trusted Tony enough to let him come over not long after the invasion and find out for himself that Clint had little to no hearing capabilities. It was nothing Clint hid in his personal life but in the field, it was a guarded secret. It showed Tony that he liked him enough to let him see them off duty. Including Natasha's fondness for a dog named Princess that wore a pink bow in her hair.

Natasha and Pepper were Thursday spa day buddies. At first Clint had been terrified.

It showed how much Tony liked Clint that he never once suggested that he build him new ears. If anything, Tony found it funny and made jokes with ease with him over it. Not one to see no humor in being deaf, Clint liked to play along. It was their thing-- a weird possibly mildly inappropriate thing but their thing nonetheless.

“When we get there be warned I'm proposing to everyone…”

“You mean those secret blue prints we weren't supposed to know about?” Clint asked.

Tony nodded.

Natasha had found them and basically told on Tony one evening. They had been warned, no one else had but Bruce probably suspected it since he was already bunking in Tony's Tower even when Pepper and him were in Malibu.

“We'll work on our excuses by tonight then,” Clint joked.

“Bullshit, you will not. See ya then-- bye Nat.” Tony disconnected.

If anyone else had called her that, she might have killed them next time she saw them. Secretly she was okay with it but Natasha ideas of playing along was pretending to be imposing when she wasn't at SHIELD.

“Want to take the dog out for a walk?” Natasha asked when Tony was gone from their sight.

“Sure. I'll be back…” he knew a shove out the door when it was presented.

Clearly she was in work mode and maybe before the day was over she would actually tell him why.

All things considered this was the best morning either of them had in awhile.

\--

Clint liked to pretend he was normal. Natasha tended to go along it for his sake. Well not so much pretend but ignore the few things that divided him from their society.

The warning bells had started a week ago. They both had questionable dreams. Generally the rule was if you had a nightmare, you shared unless you felt it was of no concern.

Clint had one nightmare about Loki and that was it. She only knew he was having the same one because he talked in his sleep but it never came back after the attack. The next night she heard Phil Coulson's name and had everyday since. When she asked, he deflected.

Then about a month ago, he started acting even stranger. Totally withdrawn from society, not the Clint Barton that Natasha had come to know. He was not taking side jobs (their undercover career was over but either were hardly short on work; the Avengers did to keep the peace or help innocents on the side), going out and hanging with Steve or Tony or even going on dates with Natasha.

A logical conclusion would be his guilt in Phil's death but Natasha had no idea what his dreams really were about. All the things Clint dreamed of were missions involving the three of them. Often ones that left Coulson injured or in need of help. Never the ones where Coulson was his highly competent self.

It was almost like Coulson was calling him from the grave.

There was the not so bright terrorist Mikael Olsen, the corrupt cop Anthony De Marino, the IRA ring… in everyone one of them Coulson had been injured.

Natasha waited for the other end of the line to patch her through, “Agent Romanov.”

“You owe me a few favors don't you, Agent Sitwell?”

\-- 

(Midtown- May 4th 2013)

“I still can't believe you found this place by landing on top of the advertisement banner,” Bruce said amused when they sat down to a free private meal.

Tony shrugged, “Something to make you forget that it was possible we could all be killed.”

“Any distraction is a good one in my book,” Steve responded positively.

Steve in the past year had taken in the role of team Captain well. He had even made few friends of his own and had basically buddied up to Natasha.

Tony and him still had their moments but it was as close to harmony as they would maybe ever get.

Generally Steve was the encouraging one of the group, Tony was the loud mouth, Thor was inquisitive one, Bruce was the adult in the group, Clint was the loner, and Natasha was the mother. Natasha sometimes joked this set feminism back twenty years but all things considering Pepper kind of seemed like a scary dangerous she woman underneath those heels and Natasha wasn't always in killer mode.

They were all fine treating her like the den mother. Natasha secretly liked it until Darcy called her out on it over Christmas dinner. Then she went through avoidance of doing it for about a month before the team could convince her they liked her that way and it didn't make her any less dangerous.

Of them all surprisingly, Bruce was the one with the least amount of hangups. The most adjusted member despite turning into a giant green rage monster. He usually had no trouble chatting with anyone and while doing it managed to keep them from brooding. Clint was almost envious of this hidden talent.

“Next time Tony falls threw a banner, we'll go there instead,” Bruce countered sarcastically, “I'm thinking free McDonald's during monopoly month is the way to go.”

The team laughed at Tony's horrified face.

“Never!”

Steve gently tapped Natasha's shoulder as they waited for the food, “Is something wrong with Agent Barton? He's been quiet all night.”

Natasha looked over her shoulder to make sure that Clint was not paying attention to her, “Generally it means he's in a good place. Most of the time.”

“Not tonight?”

Natasha shrugged and went to sip her water, “He's been leaning heavily on off-duty mode all week. It's not normal.”

That was all she was willing to say without totally betraying the privacy they shared among each other. Clint's nightmares were only their business and no one else's. Even if it was explaining it would be harder to anyone of the group because they did not know them before Manhattan with the exception of Stark who only knew undercover Natalie Rushman.

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Bring Coulson back from the dead.”

She could feel as well see Steve's surprise from where she was sitting. The dumbfounded look on his face was impossible to miss.

“Something wrong?” Bruce asked the second he noticed their faces. Natasha looked uncomfortable by Steve's shock and Steve just looked beside himself.

The others glanced in their direction. Clint had been playing paper, scissors, rock with Thor and Tony had been texting Pepper while chatting with Bruce about an experiment.

“Uh no?” Steve said with it sounding more like a question than an answer.

After a beat, the table resumed their discussions but Clint's eyes seemed to be trained now on Natasha and Steve.

“I had no idea they were close…”

Natasha snorted, “What you know is my relationship with Coulson. I was amused by his hobby and his sense of extreme justice. I often felt he was not serious enough and too idealistic.”

That he had already come to know through their year as being friends. Natasha had liked Coulson, they were friends but not quite the same way Barton and him were.

“Clint's relationship with Coulson was vastly different,” Natasha continued, “They were like brothers. Coulson was older but Clint kind of felt responsible for him.”

“Why?”

“I don't know what you remembered from meeting him but Coulson's whole life was his job. First it was desk job and then it a field one and then it became both with his promotions. He had almost no personal life before us and Clint wanted to fix it. Coulson became his regular wingman whether he wanted to be or not. At times, it was funny-- sometimes I felt bad for Coulson he was clueless outside of SHIELD,” Natasha remarked.

Steve tried to picture it but failed to clearly come up from an image. He had long decided that Phil Coulson was obviously an idealist married to his career and very brave-- possibly a good fighter. Respected and admired by many but the few that knew him seemed to either be amused by him or not like in Natasha's case.

“He can get over anything… he can't get over Coulson.”

“I thought Barton was always Fury's pet,” Steve said.

“Oh he is-- definitely. Director Fury thinks Clint is hilarious and trust his judgment over just about everyone's. But Fury avoids us outside of work. Coulson usually didn't see us that often at work, it was more a personal relationship. I personally got along better with Hill but when Coulson died, she stopped coming around,” Natasha told him.

Maria and Natasha would have girl night's while Clint would take out Coulson and attempt to teach him things about life. How to get piss drunk for example or how to enjoy Stephen King's movies and not just the books.

“Did we really change everything for you?” Steve asked.

“Yes, you did.”

\--

_(September 2009)_

_“Are we really out of bandages?” Clint asked peaking down at the first aid kit._

_Natasha turned it upside down for effect._

_“Shit. Okay, no more getting stabbed by panicked drug dealers,” Clint joked holding up a finger sternly pointing at Natasha._

_She rolled her eyes but silently agreed. Between the two of them, they had managed to use their entire collection in one sitting. It was dangerously close to one of them needing to be brought to an emergency room._

_A sweep across the room told her that they were going to need to mop their kitchen floor it was covered in dirt and blood. That neither person's injury was fatal based on the shallowing wounds and watery looked the blood had (almost like a pale orange instead of a deep crimson)._

_“Couslon?” Clint asked._

_“Passed out on the couch, I gave him what sedatives we had left,” Natasha confirmed._

_“You know we should really try to spend more time here. The neighbors might try to rob us sometime when they figure out that we're never here,” he responded looking around noticing all the empty cabinets and the lack of food._

_The only thing they had in their apartment was medical supplies and some furniture._

\---

The changes they had gone through in the last year were big but truthfully, it was when Natasha was with Tony Stark that their relationship changed the most.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder and if anyone ever thought Natasha was an ice queen, they no longer did after Barton was gone from her presence for almost six months.

The avengers gave them a family but SHIELD had given them a life.

The first meeting they had AFTER Clint had decided to save her life was almost hard to believe now.

It was hostile.

(November 2005)

They were at a stalemate. Clint was sitting there sharpening a knife while Natasha sat across the table glaring at him. Part of her was glad that he had saved her life, the other part of her wanted to stab him to death with that knife.

Agent Barton had a made a call and then dragged her back while Natasha had screamed at him in Russian-- the entire way back.

Later on, Natasha would realize that it had no bothered him because he was deaf. Years after that, he would finally tell her how he ended up deaf. At the time, she just wondered how he ignored her so easily.

It would take three weeks before Natasha would be thankful that Barton made the call he did, and another few months before she would vow to herself to clean up her ledger and make it up to him someway.

At that point in time though, Natasha was a seventeen-year-old girl (and teenagers regardless of origins and years spent in the service of killers were still pains in the ass) and all she could do was imagine the ways she could cut him from ear-to-ear.

“I'm not one for talking so you never actually have to say anything to me if you don't want,” Clint offered finally after an hour of silence, “But make no mistake you won't be leaving here unless it's in a body bag.”

Natasha replied in broken english, “I h-at-e du.”

“Right back at ya kid. I don't do partners.”

\--

At seventeen, Natasha was an emotionless killer. Clint turned into a teenager, an angry one but he humanized her.

At twenty-nine, Clint was an anti-social killer. Natasha turned a loner into a team player and rebuilt his trust issues. Something no one had managed to do before her.

At nineteen, Natasha told him what she knew about her old life.

At thirty-two, Clint told her about his entire life including about how he stabbed his own eardrums to their end.

At nineteen and thirty-two, Agent Barton and Agent Romanov had sex for the first time.

Two years later, Budapest happened.

At twenty-one and thirty-four, Agent Barton and Agent Romanov-- became Clint and Natasha. They moved in, they made friends with Coulson and Hill. They had weekly date nights and learned personal things outside of their long standing sexual relationship.

But four years later at twenty-five and thirty-seven, Clint and Natasha became a normal couple thanks in part to their new family and the loss of their undercover careers.

The Avengers had changed everything but sometimes Natasha wondered if it had truly been for the best.

Agent Romanov was feared by even their own agents. She was often found training, undercover, or in the kitchen planning tactical missions over a salad and a cup of coffee. She didn't socialize on base and she kept to herself.

Agent Barton would disappear for days on end and when he was around, he would terrorize the office staff and haze the field agents. He was anti-social and avoided the crowd.

After Manhattan, Natasha was no longer feared but admired, Clint had rookies always coming up to him hoping for some one-on-one training. Everyone wanted to console them and some wanted their autographs for their families.

And their desire to hang around work ended.

Natasha picked up Pepper, Jane, and Darcy.

Clint picked up Bruce, Tony, and Steve.

Then Thor arrived and it was a full on nine person orgy of togetherness. Their apartment was their last barrier from the group and now it was going to go away.

Natasha was afraid of what this all could mean.

Clint was excited but feared for his loner status.

Both were losing themselves between the nightmares and the rapid changes they had been forced to go through.

And deep down, Natasha knew they were bottoming out and it was only a matter of time before it all went crashing down on them.

\--

(April 2011)

“Nat? Nar? You're burning up,” Clint proclaimed feeling her forehead trying to get her to pay attention.

Natasha sat at the breakfast table, her nose red, her eyes bloodshot, her gaze unfocused, and she was shivering slightly despite being fully clothed (head-to-toe with socks and long sleeves on) in early fall where the temperatures were far too warm for what she was even wearing.

“Huh?” she asked turning her attention to him.

Natasha rarely if ever got sick but when she did, it was usually pretty bad. Clint would get little colds at times and sometimes an illness related to be injured-- an infection-- an ear ache…

Natasha would always be fine until the day when she wasn't fine and everything turned on its head.

She was could feel the illness, had for about two days, ignored it-- now it was impossible if no other reason than Clint had found out.

Clint who at times had a nanny complex that he got from dealing with Phil Coulson. People often assumed that Phil was the team's babysitter. If anything Clint was his babysitter. Coulson was his desperate for attention and affection like a starved child (which partially explained his continued Captain America boyhood hero complex); he might have had a better childhood than both Natasha and Clint but Coulson the oldest in his family often was left to be the adult. Clint more worldly had taken away some of his burden and Natasha's mothering effectively brought him down to a child like status.

It essentially meant that if Natasha was down, then Clint would pick up the pieces and be left holding the parent role.

“I'm fine,” she said shortly despite the fact that they knew otherwise. Clint rolled his eyes and went over to the sink to soak a wet cloth for her.

'Beds that way,' he signed pointing towards their bedroom door.

Natasha got up and gave him the finger on the way out of the kitchen. Maybe she was glad Clint did this, certainly she would later when he would sing to her and feed her ice cream in bed.

\--

For everyone Manhattan had been a life changing event. For the world that they fought for aliens had been exposed, For Steve Rogers, it was the sense of belonging he had been waiting for since he woke up months before. For Tony Stark it was like adopting a whole family:

Thor was the crazy uncle that walked around in his underwear on the deck at 3am (Thor didn't actually do this but Pepper's uncle in fact did),  
Clint was the redheaded step child that liked his solitary confinement but was a real gift to have around. Fun when needing to be, serious when it called for it, brotherly when he felt like it, and responsible when the team sorely needed it.  
Natasha was the anti-social sister. The one that called you a girl like she had cooties at the dinner table but meant it somewhat nicely despite its tone. She was also the one that would kick the bully's ass that picked on you down the block.  
Steve was the favorite uncle who also was younger like the new American family. He was the wise one thanks to his elders but still naive about the world in a way that was endearing.  
Bruce was the brother from another mother that happened to live next door and always come around to avoid his own family. He was the one you went to for everything that might be important.

Tony had lucked out, if anyone had benefitted from this team positively, it was him. For Thor it was almost the opposite, a sign of his failures and loss. Thor had lost the most by this arrangement-- a home, a family, and his friends. It was guilt that brought Thor to them and kept him here. He pretend to be jovial and kind but underneath everyone could see the sadness that plagued him.

For Bruce, it was starting over. A new life. A chance to do everything he never got to do, to find a cure, to meet a girl, to be a man, and to have a home. It was the second coming most people hoped to achieve at forty that never got to the first time around. It was almost humanistic in what this life had come to offer him.

But when it came to the “master assassins” no one was really sure what they lost or gained by this arrangement.

For Clint on the surface, it was a new team, something to foster and grow like he had did with Natasha and Phil. The chance to make lemonade from lemons. To fix what he failed to fix the first time. To save someone else's life the way he could never save his own or Phil's. At the same time, for Clint it was a sign that his life was no longer his own. That life had gone out of his control and he had no chance to reclaim it.

For Natasha, it was just another day, another place, another group of people. Or at least that was what everyone assumed. For Natasha it was a chance to have the life with Clint they never thought they could have. Neither would admit it and she more than him, wanted this life. They wanted the white picket fence, the dog, and maybe the kids much later. They wanted that chance. This was it but it came with conditions.

Dangerous conditions like Fame, Fortune and Family-- the ones that could hurt you the most in the end.

“You packed?” Clint asked her taping her on the shoulder.

“Yeah, it's not like we really kept anything here anyway.” She noted.

The only thing left were the memories of broken bodies, feverish dreams, and a silence that was unique to Clint that maybe they will never get back.

\--

(May 5th 2013)

“Welcome to Stark Tower, I'll be your host Tony Stark,” Tony said throwing his arms up in the arm welcoming the group in.

Clint wanted to roll his eyes and point out that his hearing aids obviously weren't in but maybe this was a gift in disguise. Chances are he was just missing out on Tony's ego anyway.

“And where shall we sleep?” Thor demanded holding a sleeping bag, “I was told this is important tool used for sleeping.”

“… The beds have sheets,” Tony remarked looking at the torn up sleeping bag, it was a plaid red with little holes and tears noticeable on the sides and exterior.

“Sheets?'

Clint looked at Natasha wondering what he was missing.

Natasha shook her head, 'You don't want to know'.

“Follow me. First trained killers, this will be your floor,” Tony gestured once they arrived down two flights of stairs.

Tony tapped Clint on the shoulder and motioned with his hands like he was playing a game of charades, “Sleep here.”

Clint rolled his eyes.

“Funny,” Natasha said dryly.

“Am I missing something?” Steve asked nervously.

“Not a thing Captain.” Clint replied before walking off in the direction of the bedroom that Tony motioned to.

Steve looked at Natasha.

Natasha pointed at Tony, “He has a sick twisted sense of humor.”

“Are you going to tell me what I'm missing?” Steve finally demanded of Tony as Natasha left.

“Oh yeah, Legolas is deaf.”

Steve dropped his duffle bag in shock.

“Kind of amazing how he fights and all that good stuff right?” Tony asked gleefully, rubbing his hands together like he had personally designed Clint for combat instead of meeting him that way.

“Was no one ever going to tell me?”

“I was aware that Agent Barton was of the non-hearing. He did not flinch when I spoke of my tales on Asgard when everyone else did,” Thor said proudly.

It was true all the others felt if they had gone deaf from Thor's singing voice. Clint had been fine but somehow Steve had missed that little detail.

“Somehow I feel like I should have known that,” he said finally after the moment had passed.

So much for the theory that Captain America was the most sensitive or observational team member.

Tony patted him on the back, “It's okay Cap, maybe it's better that you didn't. In your day they would have just institutionalized him anyway. Called him mentally retarded. If you had known from the start, you probably would assumed he was stupid and incapable.”

Steve felt sick on the inside because he feared that Tony might actually be right.

\--

Clint waited for Natasha to enter the room, “What are the odds that Tony makes Steve and Thor look like assholes over this?”

Natasha snorted, “One hundred percent.”

Clint flipped onto the bed and started pulling up the covers, “I'm closing my eyes, feel free to talk to yourself or just be silent.”

She nodded as she watched his eyes closed. Natasha sometimes had to wonder whether or not she would have liked Clint before his accident (it was a tragedy but truthfully hardly an accident). If maybe part of her attraction was that he could be silent and she could say whatever she wanted without him hearing all of it.

It made her wonder if she was the horrible person she used to think she had been back in Russia.

In the field, perhaps she should have thought him a danger to have around. Natasha should have insisted she had a partner that work on all cylinders. Anyone that knew anything about hearing aids were that they were not a cure, they did not give the person sound, they just gave them the ability to hear certain things around them.

Clint was deaf and there was no cure for it and no amount of super secret hearing aids made in a SHIELD lab were going to change it. Make him more effective.

Not that he needed, Clint was the best not only because of his eyesight but because he was deaf. He could pretend not to be and have people believe it. She knew most conversations they had he could not actually understand but instead of feeling pity or just giving up Clint would lip read. And if he missed something, Clint would fill in the blanks and keep on fighting till made him as normal as the next guy.

It was not a handicap, it was his tribute to his talent. It made his eyes that much sharper, better vision, better sense of smell and touch.

It made sex that much better. Nothing to say. Just do. Repeatedly.

“Do you ever miss hearing? Do you ever wonder what my voice must really sound like?” Natasha asked knowing she would never get an answer. Clint was awake but his eyes were closed.

Sometimes she dreamed of having a child and wondering if Clint would miss out because he would never hear its' screams.

\--

(June 2006)

“Why did you do it?” Natasha asked slowly sitting down across from him.

This was the first time that she sat with Clint chatting with him while his hearing aids were not in his ears.

“I saw no other way out,” he replied after a minute.

Natasha had to remind herself not to look down at the table when the next question came to her mind. She knew it was insensitive but the morbid part of her, the part that was a killer wanted to know the answer before she even knew how she wanted phrase the question.

“How bad was the pain?”

Clint on instinct put his left hand to his ear and covered it as if to shield it from harms way.

“Which part? The ringing? That was like having someone tie a bell to my eardrum and crank up the volume. Or the part after that when I took an arrow and stabbed myself? Because that felt like I was dying and then I felt like disoriented lost at sea with no escape. I couldn't feel anything except pain. It was so painful that eventually became numb, I blacked out feeling nothing.”

His eyes became unfocused as if he was having a flashback to the situation.

Natasha reached her left arm tentatively to touch Clint's hand over his ear still. He flinched when he realized she was touching his ear.

Clint clenched her hand and brought them both to rest on the table, never removing his own from her grasp, “You didn't ask the most important question.”

“What's that?”

“Do I ever miss my hearing?”

Natasha stayed silent.


	2. Movin' Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint takes off and Natasha is the normal one for once. Tony is a jerk. Steve is emotional.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the process of getting this beta read! That means it might look better, yay. ((I hate to tell ya though, my talent doesn't get any better, just the words)).
> 
> All the chapter title's are songs because I'm not original at all. This one is from Billy Joel. The last chapter was Alice Cooper.

(May 21st 2013)

Clint knew he was wasting away. Natasha and him as a couple were more solid than they ever had been before. They had friends and family now. They were liked, they had a real home, and they weren't trapped undercover in jobs they could not even bring up to each other at dinner unless they worked the same job.

It was nice to just be normal… well as normal as they could possibly be.

But Clint was getting worse. He thought he had coped well with Loki, almost as well as when he lost his hearing. Clint was sure that he it under control.

Then the nightmares started. In them he saw Phil Coulson. And Natasha. Always Phil and Natasha. His brother and his lover. In full blown three dimensional terror. In them, someone was always hurt or dying but these weren't just dreams, they were memories.

Memories of a time before Loki and The Avengers. When things were supposedly simple.

The nightmares slowly were causing a shift. Natasha and Clint had what they called and on- and off work relationship. Their entire relationship dynamics between the field and “real life” were completely different. Their identities, their habits, their interests changed for the sake of their own sanity.

With every nightmare, a little bit of their wall fell down. Clint's identity merged, blended into something dark and twisted. He could feel himself withdrawing from the crowd unable to stop it.

Natasha could too. Her own suffering was a direct result of his. He could feel her become more suspicious of his behavior. It brought about her own form of paranoia.

She would react by throwing herself into work. He knew she had called base no less than three times this week about getting work thrown her way.

The Avengers changed everything for the better on the surface but somewhere along the lines neither professional had gotten that message. Instead, they were drifting further down the river with the paddles already gone.

\---

 

“I need a job. I need something to do,” Clint said one evening to Sitwell over Skype.

Sitwell sighed, Natasha had already asked for an assignment. Fury had basically told him in no certain terms that they were retired from duty effective immediately and no matter how much they begged, shit was not going to happen.

“You know what Fury said,” Sitwell replied.

Clint rolled his eyes, “And you know damn well that you would not have talked to Natasha three times if you weren't planning on ignoring that little directive.”

“I'm not Phil Coulson.”

“No shit,” Clint retorted angrily, “Look, I just need an out. I know you have something. I just need to know what it is.”

Jasper paused, Coulson would have told Barton. Not only that, he would have insisted he come along and Fury be damned. It was about doing the right thing.

On the other hand, Jasper wasn't Phil Coulson. Fury did not give him that kind of free reign and he fully admitted that compared to Coulson he was a god damn pussy.

A good brave agent prepared to die for his country if need be but a pussy nonetheless. Breaking the code was so not his thing.

“There might be something…” Jasper said after a minute. He slowly pulled a paper file from his desk drawer.

Clint's eyebrow rose.

“Look, you do this…. There won't be any SHIELD support. We can't have you involved officially. I can't be your ears. You'll have to rely on your hearing aids and whatever good judgment you have left in you. No avengers. No Fury. No SHIELD. I can get you safe passage, some money to get a hotel and some shit, and your gear. That's it,” Sitwell said after a minute.

One of these days Clint was going to have teach Sitwell how to use sign language, he really only could get half of that but the statement was luckily for him straight forward. This was some mission impossible kind of shit. This message will self destruct in five seconds, go luck, get moving agent.

Clint nodded, “So where am I going?”

“Gaza.”

\--

(June 2013)

Leaving would not be hard, it was a job. Clint worked like every other American only his job was a little more unique than nine to five. The others like Tony Stark had no idea what life was like. They lived on calling the shots or picking their own hours because of their genius (like Bruce).

Clint was the kind of man that knew his job and did it well. Trying to tell his teammates that however would be a bit of a struggle. Especially since Natasha and Tony knew of Fury's directive concerning the two SHIELD agents.

Natasha was going to kill him.

But at this point anything was better than the direction he had been going in. Clint was a step away from taking up a drinking habit (and that was an extremely bad sign) and becoming a football junkie (another thing Clint was not so keen on. He actually found it boring).

“So I took a job. I'm leaving tomorrow,” Clint blurted out at dinner that evening.

He announcement came in-between Thor and Tony's argument over the potatoes being better fried or boiled. Steve had dropped his silverware and stopped mid-chew to stare at Clint.

Tony and Thor had snapped their heads in his direction like he had just announced his plan for a sex change.

Bruce paused but otherwise showed no reaction whatsoever.

Natasha at first mimicked Bruce until she saw that his gaze was on hers than she took a moment to slam her fist on the table making everyone jump in surprise. No one knew Natasha to be hotheaded or outwardly angry most of the time.

“Don't do this,” she said simply hiding her anger underneath her plea.

It was impossible to shield from Clint though, he knew what Natasha's seething tone sounded like-- this was it.

Tony might have been the mouth of the group but often he liked to be voice of reason as well, “She's right, you shouldn't do whatever you're planning Legolas.”

“Why not?” Steve interjected.

The group all stared at him amazed that he was picking Clint's side.

Clint just lifted his brow in surprise.

“He could do some good. Maybe it's an important mission. And we can always provide backup if need be,” Steve replied to the shell shocked team.

“Absolutely not,” Clint snapped instantly,

Now Steve turned to him less supportive and more annoyed.

Natasha let out a bitter laugh, “We can't come Captain because wherever Barton has decided to go involves going undercover. Not his usual gig but he picked it just to make sure we couldn't follow him.”

Barton not Clint. Yes, he was in trouble with his girlfriend. A lot of trouble.

“Why would you do that?” Steve asked him with a piercing gaze.

Clint wanted to fidget and confess all his problems to Captain America like he was Phil Coulson number one fan. Unfortunately, when Cap was Steve, Clint was anything but cooperative.

Clint stood up, “That's my business no offense kid.”

Kid. Not Captain. Not Boss. Not Steve but kid.

That riled up the rest of the team besides Natasha who had not been riled up to begin with.

“Hey don't talk to him like that,” Tony snapped in Steve's defense, “He's not some little boy you put in the corner because he wouldn't stop screaming. You can't just tell him or anyone else at this table to fuck off just because you're having a moment. We're a team and a family-- your decisions affect us too moron.”

Clint scoffed okay now he pissed off too, “Okay let's pretend that's true for a second. Then how far up your ass has your head been since we arrived?”

Tony stood up to stand eye level with Clint, he was a little shorter but his anger and the intensity of dark eyes was enough to make him Clint's equal.

“Oh you mean Natasha and yourself? What you think I didn't notice Legolas?” Tony ranted, “That I somehow missed how lost you've become since last month. No, I just ignored it.”

“Why? Huh Tony? We're such a big family that you ignored it?” Clint taunted.

“I ignored it because it's what you both wanted,” Tony countered.

He was right. Clint had no comeback for that. It was true that was exactly what they had wanted to work out their own issues.

“You don't belong to them anymore,” he said after a minute, Tony's anger seeming to disappear some. “I've tried to do everything for everyone. I tried to make everyone happy. The only two people that have resisted so far have been you and Natasha. She's at least willing to work with me. You on the other hand? Had no intention from the beginning. You've let your nightmares and fears rule you since last year Barton and there's nothing anyone can do for you.”

Before anyone else could offer their unwanted advice or truths that Clint had been happy to ignore, he stormed off.

Natasha's gaze never left his face.

\--

An hour went by before Clint found himself face-to-face with his girlfriend. Not his partner but the human being left behind that did normal everyday things with him. His life partner and boy was she pissed.

Natasha Romanova the killer might have been supportive. It was Nat that was homicidal.

“So that's it? Doesn't matter what I think?” she demanded by way of greeting noticing his travel bag was half packed and his shoes were already on his feet.

Clint threw his arms up, the entire exchange had been without words so far. At the table, she used telekinetic aggravation that she not so subtlety pushed in his direction. The second he stormed off, she followed and proceeded to sign aggressively this time with actual not pretend mental words in his line of sight.

All of them being rather rude by a any normal persons standard. Then she got mad and stormed off to go rant to Pepper Potts on the phone. It was testament to how much better she was handling having roommates that she actually called them in time of distress.

Pepper, Tony and everyone else after they moved realized they were a couple. However, most of them shy of Thor who had zero expectations on relationships assumed it was like they were trained professionals 24/7.

Bruce almost had a heart attack the time he walked in and they were baking cookies. Cookies like it was some kind of sex kink that they said “let's bake” but meant something else entirely. He somehow did not believe them to be serious clearly Bruce learned a lesson that day.

He also showed class by not acting like an idiot when it was fairly apparent that he had believed them incapable of baking treats.

Tony though had flat out accused them as only being sex partners. Natasha threw a shoe at his head and showed the entire team pictures of their trip to Maui where they did everything except have sex.

Still they kept their non-sexual/non-business relationship away from the team as much as possible if not only to spare their psyche.

“I can't stay Nat. I tried. I tried really hard.”

“Really hard? That's the excuse you're going to use? Really hard? No, Clint. Let's be honest. You flat out attempted to make this fail since the beginning. So did I at first. I miss the field too…” she started.

Clint snorted, “Of course you don't. No more having to lead on drug dealers with promise of sex like you're their toy. No more Tony Stark's. No paperwork. It's the life you always wanted, killing the bad guys to make up for your past without having to compromise anything.”

Perhaps that was the wrong argument to have with her.

“No compromise Barton?” she looked positively murderous. Her face almost as red as the hair on her head. The image of head exploding was streaming into Clint's mind.

Before Clint could even think to apologize, despite his hands already being lifted up into the hair as if he trying to stop her from shooting-- “Loki.”

He deserved that.

“I'm sorry.”

“Not good enough.”

Clint sat down the bed and put his hands over his face. Sounds of frustration apparent. It was a good thing his hearing aids had been back in because Natasha was not about to stop her assault.

“I- I- I can't do it anymore. By it, I mean Stark Tower. No, not even that. I like everyone you know that. I've been dealing with the lack of privacy and the obvious surprise at everyone that we bake and watch television. I'm miserable. I'm not sleeping. You aren't either. We're losing what relationship we had among ourselves to the entire team,” he pointed out staring at her.

"So you're giving up?” she asked, “On what exactly? On us? On the team?”

“I don't know anymore.”

She sat down on the chair in the corner of their room, “I called Sitwell you know. About a month ago. I saw the direction we were heading in. I thought maybe he could fix you. Put a band aid on the problems we were having.”

“And?”

“There's no band aid.”

Clint sighed, “Maybe there is…”

Natasha rolled her eyes, “Going on a mission is not a band aid.”

“Sitwell is the one that asked me to go. He said it would be good for me. It's not SHIELD sanctioned. Wouldn't tell me what it was for just that it was something he wanted to check out on his own,” Clint began, “Coulson trusted him. I offered to be his eyes and ears.”

Of everything Natasha expected that had not been it. Clint was going on unknown mission being done in secret by one man just because he was Coulson's protégée.

“Are you out of your mind? You never take jobs that resemble your time as a freelancer.”

That was a lesson known fact, that Clint was once a very good very high priced hitman. Not exactly something he had been proud of but he did anyway.

“I'm sorry but I have to do this-- whatever Sitwell is offering. I can't stay here waiting for the end, for trouble to happen again, or for god only knows for our skills to die out. I'm going Nat and I don't know when or if I'll come back.”

\---

(July 2013)

She would never admit to it but every morning Natasha woke up feeling the sheets of the spot next to her. In her self-lucid state she always imagined Barton sleeping there next to her.

Then her brain would catch up with reality and she would moan slightly and wake up fully. It was becoming a familiar habit of semi denial.

Natasha was getting restless and she sorely missed her partner-- her lover-- her friend.

The others noticed the change in her the second Barton walked out the door. Natasha on a good day was friendly, kind of girly, a little bit of a housewife and semi emotionless on the surface but with an overall witty and noticeable sense of humor.

Since Clint had left, Natasha had basically become the standard mindless solider they knew some operations within SHIELD to be. Withdrawn would be an understatement, Natasha was almost not even there at all.

If she was, it was simply to eat and go to sleep.

She had even refused to workout with the other teammates, sure she still lifted weights and ran-- shot at things but if anyone offered a sparing partner she would flatly refuse them and walk away angrily.

Like they were Clint because obviously that had been another thing between them.

The girls night out with Pepper had ceased to exist.

Pepper would try to talk and Natasha would put her on best Natalie Rushman act for it to only fail once Pepper would latch onto something based on perception which would anger Natasha and send her back into solitude.

For the team it was like losing Clint all over again.

“You would think Barton died or something,” Tony muttered after watching her sit at the breakfast table staring into space.

Steve hissed angrily at Tony, “And you saying that isn't going to help.”

Tony rolled his eyes and put butter on his toast aggressively, “He's my friend too. More mine than yours Cap. But it's just a mission and maybe it might him some good. I admit I was pissed at first. Then after a day or two I realized the rest of the Tower was no longer tense. None of us were waiting for the other shoe to drop anymore.”

At that statement, Steve sighed but was forced to at least to himself agree that Tony was right. They had been all waiting for the destruction to happen. Clint had been miserable and Natasha seemed to be constantly on edge.

When he left whether they liked it or not (and none of them did) almost everyone sans Natasha seemed to relax. It made Steve feel terrible but within a week of Clint's disappearance things had almost leveled out among the group.

Natasha however had gone from angry to depressed. Like she had been hit with the four stages of grief. Tony was right, it was as if she was mourning him as dead.

They knew he would be back though. The thought otherwise had never once entered their minds. What if they were wrong though? Steve had never considered that maybe Natasha's grief wasn't so uncalled for after all.

“Natasha?” Steve said after a second.

He could feel Tony's eyes on him suspicious as if he expected Steve to disagree with him-- possibly fight with him over the issue. Instead Steve turned almost white as a sheet of paper and addresses the elephant in the room.

“Yes?” she asked turning in their direction. She had a moment of pause when she noticed the expression on Steve's face.

“Barton IS coming back… right?”

Tony's mouth dropped open in shock. Natasha never responded.

\--

(June 2013- The day after Clint left)

“Where's Clint?” Bruce asked the next morning after Clint's impromptu shouting match with the rest of the Team.

He like Thor and Steve assumed that it would blow over. That tomorrow (now today) the team would re-assemable and all would be well.

Tony and Pepper had disagreed but still felt a favorable outcome would happen soon.

The look on Natasha's face however seemed to tell the opposite story. Natasha looked downright irate.

She started stabbing her bagel with a kitchen knife, “Oh Barton is gone. Left last night. First plane off the base if the flight log was telling the truth.”

Bruce gulped.

Not exactly what anyone had thought would occur. Clint left them and not only that, he left his angry killer girlfriend home with them.

“Is there someone I could get for you?” he asked timidly afraid that if he set her off, she would set The Other Guy off.

“No. I'm just fine. Sitting here. Eating.”

The bagel wasn't even edible anymore, she had hacked it to a bread crumb death.

“Tasha…”

Natasha looked squarely at Bruce, her expression sobered and she sat down the knife, “I don't think he's coming back.”

Before he could process her distress or the meaning behind that sentence, Natasha got up and practically ran out of the room.

\--

(SHIELD headquarters in New York- June 2013- Clint's departure)

“Sitwell,” Clint said by way of a fast greeting. He was standing there with nothing but his black duffle, his bow, some arrows, and an expression that said he wasn't entirely happy to see the man.

Not that he hated Sitwell but he really wished that he was there illicitly meeting Coulson or maybe even Agent Hill instead.

Really he had somehow hoped this was a cover and that Fury had a job for him under the radar where the council wouldn't find out. Instead, it appeared to be legit as Sitwell claimed it was. That is to say, it was a mission entirely of his making involving only Clint and himself.

Kind of sad to be honest.

“Barton. Glad you could make it.”

Clint did a survey of the flight deck noting that there was a single plane. All others had been removed or were in-flight elsewhere. The cameras appeared to have been disabled-- probably by someone Sitwell was friends with in Security.

There was a single co-pilot someone that Clint had never met before based on the lack of surprise or accusatory look of the man. Besides that, there were a free cargo boxes and manila folder that Sitwell had in his hand.

Otherwise, the place was a barren desert. It unnerved him. Never had Barton seen the make shift airport so empty in his entire tenure.

“What's with the secrecy? Where's the other shit they usually have here?” he asked cautiously trying not to come off as accusing or suspicious of the agent.

Sitwell laughed slightly, not that he didn't expect Clint to ask those particular questions but he out it rather enlightening that the agent would say that first instead of last. Lesser men might have bullshitted for awhile or just panicked and started throwing accusations.

Not Barton.

Now Sitwell knew why he had been Coulson's pet. They were alike in a number of ways, “Needed to make sure no one else would come in. Had supplies and storage items moved so that if an agent needed to poke around they would do it elsewhere. Didn't want anyone seeing you here or finding out I gave you this mission.”

That was a little alarming, Clint ignored the feeling though and pushed it back.

“Two weeks after The Manhattan Initiative (what they were now calling Loki's plan to take over the world) we had an agent go missing.”

“Missing?” Clint's voice echoed. Why would Sitwell want Clint to look for a missing agent. Wouldn't SHIELD already be handling that? Besides, that was a year ago, a little late to be searching for a missing agent.

“Well that's where it gets tricky. The agent was deemed KIA before he even went missing,” Sitwell explained.

Clint stared at him partially in shock but also, he was a little on the annoyed side, “So you want me to find a missing agent that was deemed dead? How the fuck does that even happen Sitwell?”

This where it got tricky at least for Sitwell, to tell Barton but not tell Barton that he was tracking a maybe real actually living Phil Coulson. While, avoiding not telling him that if he was alive, they had left him in enemy hands for almost eight months now.

“The team leader saw him die or so he thought. Called it. Left to save his own life. He came back to get the body with a team… the body was gone,” Sitwell explained. “Generally it was assumed that just maybe the agent was dead. Until last week when I got what I think was a distress message from the missing agent. If it is, we need to find him and get him back.”

What the hell had gone wrong that led them to this little disaster?

“So where was the mission? Was it in Gaza?”

“No exactly,” Sitwell hedged, “It's hard to explain exactly what happened but this our best guess. Or at least the most probable scenario. Agent CX55 was in the Manhattan Project Battle on board with us when you attacked the base…”

Clint gulped this was not exactly something he wanted to relive and especially not at this moment where he was about to sent to recuse said Agent CX55 (what they did with deceased agents was usually assign them a letter/number combination so that no one could access their personal data post-mortem or in the event they were killed by a friendly (or in the presence of one) would be able to feel guilty by finding out who was killed and how they were killed).

“He was injured, they sent him to one of our top medical facilities in Europe since the base here was being filled with injured parties from the city. He was recovering nicely and then the base was attacked. Several injured agents were killed. We assumed no one had survived but somehow- we think this one CX55 might have…” Sitwell said.

Clint finished the blanks from there, “Because he was already deemed KIA, he wouldn't have had a tracker nor would have anyone been sent to go look for him. As far the agency was concerned he was already dead.”

Sitwell nodded grimly.

“No one else can know about this because whoever it was important enough that if turns out to be false alarm or there's trouble. You don't want to get fired-- and of course, I'm supposed to be inactive,” Clint responded to himself.

“I wish you weren't so good,” Jasper said after a moment, sadness still in his tone.

He wished he could tell Clint what he was sending him to do. He had a feeling that Clint would only refuse but if this went south, Sitwell might have lost a good solider-- a good man for good.

Natasha would kill him and Fury would make sure he never saw the light of day again.

God did Sitwell hope not only for his sake but Clint's that everything worked out.

\--

_“Will you come back?”_

_“I'm not sure.”_

_“Clint…”_

Natasha rolled in bed, sweat dripping from her forehead. Her nightmares had gone from old murders to Clint. Every time, Clint said goodbye and then she never saw him again.

Every time just before she woke up, she was attending his funeral.

She then forced herself awake-- gasping, sucking in air to her lungs causing her to cough from air chocking. Natasha would love it if this was just her paranoia in action (she honestly like all good agents was slightly on the paranoid side) but she couldn't shake this feeling that something was wrong.

Clint had never actually had that conversation with her. About coming back. Natasha had been too mad to ask him that. Clint had said that but to be fair, they always said that before rushing into danger. He never explicitly said he wouldn't COME BACK to the Tower. Just that he may not come back alive.

Did that really make it any better? After all, the end result was still the same.

Still Natasha wanted to believe that Clint would come back and when he did that he would return to her. Part of her feared though even if he did survive that somehow he would refuse to come back to her. To the Tower and to the team. In her mind, it was almost as dark as him dying maybe… perhaps more frightening.

Death was something they were prepared for.

Separation by choice? Nothing that either had banked on or prepared for. Gods and Aliens were easier to train for. Being left by a loved one voluntarily? Not exactly something she had any experience with nor did she want it.

From what Clint had told her, it was like being tortured.

Just like ironically she was experiencing every night in her dreams.

\--

(July 13th 2013- After breakfast with Tony and Steve)

Natasha went to the gym and started to use Steve's punching bags. She kept punching them, harder and harder. Harder until her hands started to swell.

Finally after a few tries, one of her knuckles started to bleed from the skin being rubbed raw from contact.

Natasha kept punching.

Until JARVIS alerted the team.

Five minutes later, Steve, Tony, Bruce, Thor, and Pepper had reported to the gym,

“Warrior Queen, cease fighting. You are injured,” Thor announced.

Thor had taken to calling her Warrior Queen after streaming Xena on Netflix.

“Can't,” she half whispered harshly. If she stopped than reality set in. Reality that already kept her awake at night and ruined her sleep. Reality that Steve had unintentionally at breakfast said out loud where she could hear him (voicing all the fears she already had).

“Natasha-- Ma'am look I'm sorry about what I said earlier…” Steve began slowly.

“Save it Rogers,” she replied somewhat aggressively, “It's what we were all thinking anyway.”

Tony raised his hand, “Actually I never even considered it a possibility.”

“Either had I,” Steve confessed.

“You're an optimist,” Bruce retorted dryly to Tony, “And you're incapable of pessimism,” Bruce told Steve.

“So you thought he was gone for good?” Pepper demanded of the kind doctor. She liked Bruce but all of them had pulled for Clint to come to his senses, come back, and work out his issues like an adult. Like the family member he was.

“No,” Bruce said after a minute, “I just didn't completely rule it out or deny it like either of you did.”

Natasha let out a strained noise.

Before anyone else could react, Thor ran over to her and gently gripped her hands in his strong grasp.

“Time to stop now, Warrior Queen. You have overworked yourself and caused you great harm,” he informed her cradling them as if afraid to injure them further.

“I don't think that was why she was distressed,” Bruce interjected helping Thor take her over to the weight bench.

Bruce uncapped a water on the ground and brought the bottle to her lips, “Drink slowly.”

Natasha complied somewhat cooperatively.

Pepper had come back with some antibiotic cream and Bruce went to work on her knuckles.

“He'll come back,” Steve whispered after a minute.

Natasha shook her head, “No, he won't.”

The rest of the team paled at her response, “Did the Hawk say this?” Thor asked her distressed visibly by her words. Clint had become his new Loki, a brother, and he had already lost the one he had… not ready to do it again.

“No,” she replied, “But he heavily implied that it was probable.”

“No. No. You're wrong. Barton wouldn't just quit us. His family,” Tony snapped back somewhat in denial. Not to cheapen her relationship to the sniper but Clint was his family (like the rest of them). Family didn't leave.

“On you? No, Stark he wouldn't. On me? It's a possibility. We've hurt each other before. I reacted poorly-- so did he. We said horrible things to each other. He left. He was broken, I could see it but Stark, I was too angry to care,” she confessed after a minute.

The world could end and Clint would still be there for Stark, Rogers, Thor, and Banner. It was Natasha that feared she was expandable despite the fact that they had the longest ongoing relationship of the group entirely. He would never leave another brother behind again, like Thor it had crushed him to the bone.

Unfortunately, that didn't promise Clint would stay an Avenger or that he would move back in either.

“Tasha, he wouldn't do that to you,” Bruce said softly, he might have doubted Clint's return to base-- to the team but the one thing he had never doubted was that Barton would return for Romanov every single time.

Natasha sighed, “I wish I was as confident, Doctor Banner. I've known Clint a whole lot longer and trust me the more time that goes by? The less likely he is to return to the status quo.”

\--

(Six weeks after the Manhattan Attack)

Natasha was reading the New York Times on her kindle when her cell phone rang.

“Black Widow?”

“Is that really how you answer your phone?” Tony asked amused on the other end as if someone had told him the best joke in the entire world.

“Only when I know whose calling,” she retorted.

She was trying to sound a little more intimidating than usual. Contrary to popular belief most of the field agents not only liked her but did not fear her in the least. Though a few still secretly suspected her of being a HYDRA plant.

Those were the agents she avoided like the plague.

Tony laughed obviously signing an autograph for a fan on the other end, “So what are you doing this fine afternoon?”

Natasha snorted, “Is this a social call?”

“What are we in fifth grade? Is this a social call? Hi, Natalie can you ask your daddy if you can come over and play?” he taunted.

“Call me Natalie again,” she warned with a hint of anger that dropped from her tone a second later, “Honestly, is it?”

“It might be.” He admitted, “Bruce is bunking on the 58th floor and well we're feeling chit-chatty this wonderfully hot day figured we should phone a friend. Apparently you're the only friend either of us has in New York. Sad right?”

Natasha blinked trying not to looked surprised even though she knew Tony couldn't see her, “We're friends now?”

Tony shrugged on the other end forgetting the same rule before realizing that he was on the PHONE.

“It's not everyday you save the world with someone….”

“Mine name isn't James Rhodes.”

Tony snorted after a beat.

“Are you always this funny?” he accused her as if surprised by her deadpan humor.

There was a time when Natasha would have frankly rather instantly blown him off. However, those days had passed for the most part and she actually on some level was looking forward to this potential gathering assuming that Clint would also take part. Though she was rather inclined not to admit to it.

“What would be our plans?”

That took Tony Stark by surprise. Honestly, he had wanted to genuinely ask but figured that the agent of doom would turn him down. Besides a girl hanging with two science nerds? This wasn't Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network. She would not blow them in the bathroom stalls (never mind that Tony wasn't actually single anyway). If anything it would be slightly awkward and kind of weird.

Really what did anyone know about each other from the group? Sure Bruce and him had gotten to know each other over the last six weeks through the lab. They all knew Coulson to some degree but honestly did Agents Barton and Romanov even know each other outside of work? Tony had no idea.

“I don't know, catch a movie maybe? Get some greasy burgers at a fast food joint…”

“I'm in but Barton can come too right?”

Well that answered that question.

Tony smiled to himself, “So you actually know this Barton guy socially?” Oh there could be some blackmail material here if he played his cards right.

“I would hope so,” she said dryly.

Taken aback he asked slowly, “What does everyone else know that apparently I don't?”

“Everyone at SHIELD or the team?” Natasha asked, “SHIELD knows plenty, we have things called personnel files,” she added with some sarcasm. “Honestly, I doubt anyone knows unless they asked one of us and I don't remember anyone asking about my love life except you.”

Tony was flabbergasted, she admitted it was her LOVE life. Not some sexual awakening. Not some partner with benefits but used the direct term for significant other in a sentence and Natasha never said what she didn't mean.

Tony's voice sounded rather gleeful, like he had won the lottery. Natasha Romanov was not ice cold, “So Barton and you see each other? Like Pepper and I?”

“Hopefully more often than Miss Potts and yourself, Stark considering we've lived together for a few years now.”

“Oh.”

Natasha could not stop the mental eye roll, did he think she was one of this robots?

“He can come right?” she pressed again not giving him the chance to ask anymore inane questions.

“The more the merrier.”


	3. Wish You Were Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint can't move forward, Natasha won't go backwards, and the team gets to know Clint's dark past.
> 
> Chapter title comes from Pink Floyd which is featured in the early stages of this part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay with this one, this where I take an actual issue and turn into complete fantasy. There's a singing scene with Clint because the giftee wanted it. So to include it, I had to bullshit a few things. What I know from the deaf people I have met, music fans have their own taste etc. Not incapable of enjoying it. Clint lost his in a supernaturalish way so what it does to him is essentially cripple growth.
> 
> So to make her thing work, I basically found any way to explain it that wouldn't change the direction I wanted the story to go in without not including it. There's no real point to that piece besides the team hanging out.
> 
> I felt the need to say that because really doesn't flow with the rest of the point behind this. It's like an interlude shoved in the middle. *shrugs* Christmas gift, tried my best.

(June 2013-- a week after his departure from New York)

His vision was blurry, great, not only could he not hear anything (except maybe some ringing in his head assuming that it was not part of the delusion either) but he had absolutely no idea where the fuck he was or how he got there.

In fact, the last two weeks seemed to have melted away, he only knew two weeks had passed because of the date on his bar-less cell phone which probably explained why they did not bother removing it from his person.

Whoever they were.

He also seemed to have been relatively unharmed… which Clint was more worried about than anything. If he had at least been harmed then he would have known it was hostile territory for sure.

Instead the only sign of visible damage appeared to be to his right temple where there was a purple bruise, some faint bleeding and no sign that he been shot or stabbed anywhere. If anything it might have been confused for an accident with the exception that Clint knew for a fact that he didn't have accidents.

Why couldn't he remember? He knew his name, where he was from, what had happened prior to this but for whatever reason his memory was blank on the recent events.

The last he remembered he was telling Natasha that he was going on a mission without any details. He had been on the way to meet Sitwell.

Had he even met with Sitwell or had this happened before he had the chance to?

“What the hell?” he said slowly, his voice slurred but ironically he could hear his voice-- which was troubling. Clint had not been able to hear himself talk in years. Not really. He knew could talk or what he said but there was no hint of a tone or whether or not words struggled to formulate.

Normally Clint would assume his hearing aids were in but if they were why the fuck were they left in? Then Clint realized he could not actually feel his ears or much of anything. Drugged with morphine… procedure must have been done but what?

He was drugged. Numbing. Not paralysis. Therefore, whoever did it had felt no threat from him. However, they decided to take the pain off? What the fuck was going on?

“Ah you are awake Agent Barton.”

Clint turned his head, he paused-- somehow he wished he had been knocked out or killed.

\---

(Three to six months after May 2012 aka the date of d-day round 3)

_And did they get you to trade_  
Your heroes for ghosts?  
Hot ashes for trees?  
Hot air for a cool breeze?  
Cold comfort for change?  
And did you exchange  
A walk on part in the war  
For a lead role in a cage? 

“Wow, that's a serious set of lungs especially on a dude with no hearing,” Tony whistled impressed by Barton's one man show of Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here'.

Natasha smirked mirroring Tony's trademark, “Wait till you hear Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”

Tony looked at her mildly questioningly, “Isn't that mostly instrumental?”

“He plays guitar and bass.”

“Shit”

The entire room erupted in applause as Clint took a bow and then moved to take a seat with the others.

Bruce mused, “Losing your hearing as an adult must have been horrible but that voice….”

“Wouldn't have existed otherwise? Yeah, Doc I know. The problem I have now though-- I can't learn new songs. I can only sing to the ones I did before I lost my hearing. I can no longer tell what pitch I need to sing along to someone new…” Clint pointed out.

“Explains why you don't sing the Black Keyes,” Tony said dryly.

Clint rolled his eyes, “it's all based on memory anymore. If the music skips or something. I would be off key and never know it unless I watched the audience. I would hear and feel the vibrations of the missing beat slash band section but the words would go right by me.”

Steve looked uncomfortable briefly but spending time with Tony Stark had perhaps made him more forward than he had been before he woke up, “How did you lose your hearing?”

Natasha and Clint both flinched at the same time. The group did not miss how her eyes briefly asked him a silent question. One probably involving burying the Captain America body and how to tell Fury they had killed a national hero.

Bruce blanched, he had already figured out that whatever happened was similar to how he had become The Other Guy aka an extremely painful and bad memory. It probably wasn't a natural occurrence. For one if it had been Clint would not be able to mask it so well, his speech would be worse, and so would his ability to respond to sound geared towards him.

Steve had stepped into a minefield without even knowing it.

The group watched as Clint struggled to put on a straight game face but the brief hint of distress and even anger directed at Steve showed. However, he made a quick move to at least disguise the anger.

Logically Clint knew that Steve was being harmless with asking but Steve had no idea how much of a sensitive issue it was.

“I chose my fate and when I was presented with a 'cure' I refused.”

He stormed off.

The others turned to Natasha some in horror, some in shock, and Bruce with a grim affirmed look.

“He made a choice,” Natasha replied.

“I take it you mean not having the damage repaired,” Steve said nervously.

Natasha shook her head, “That was more stubbornness and guilt and it wouldn't have mattered. The 'cure' was a best case scenario and really with hearing aids he probably hears better than what the doctors at SHEILD wanted to do.”

“Like injecting something into your body and becoming The Hulk?”

She looked at Bruce sadly, perhaps he was the only one in the room that actually understood what led to the final outcome and he did not know the actual story.

“Exactly like that, Doctor Banner,” she answered shortly, “Only it wasn't to save humanity or the lives the others but his own.”

\----

(August 2013)

“What do you mean you LOST him?” Natasha practically growled at Agent Sitwell.

She was not known for her explosive responses typically but Sitwell telling her that Agent Barton had been MIA since June was enough to send her into angry panic.

“He went missing about a week into the mission…”

“And you thought to tell me this almost eight weeks later?” she asked coldly.

He flinched, “I got a team on the ground trying to find him so that the Avengers wouldn't come out of hiding…”

“Where did you send him?” she demanded trying not to react about that statement about The Avengers. It was true, she was a superhero now that didn't mean however that Natasha wanted a daily reminder of it from former coworkers.

That she was a security risk now.

Something she may never be used to.

“Gaza”

“Why Gaza?”

“We had a package stolen from us and taken there,” he answered quickly.

“Stolen from where?” she asked.

Sitwell was silent until he could see Natasha ready to physically attack him, he knew he should have did this over a phone. Unfortunately, the angel in his left ear told him that Barton's possible widow deserved to hear it from him in his own words.

Shit widow.

Sitwell paled again realizing his own monologue told the story he had been denying to himself. She wasn't asking as his partner. She was asking as his unofficial wife and he better answer or else.

“Iceland.”

Natasha stared at him blankly, “We only have an emergency medical facility there…”

Sitwell's shifted on his heels nervously.

“…What kind of package was this agent?”

Jasper looked down at his feet, “I can't tell you.”

She pushed him against the wall to where a picture of Iron Man was hanging up, probably Tony had put it up at some point. It was the common room and often it was covered in Iron Man junk because he was kind of vain and also it was a running joke among the entire team now.

“Tell me.”

“I can't! I'd lose my job. Fury could lose his job. Agent Hill would get the promotion she never wanted,” he insisted.

He really wanted to cave though, Coulson would have approved if he had. That realization caused Sitwell to let out a tortured laugh. This was getting to be the worst joke in the world, he only thought of Coulson as his all knowing disney movie cricket and not as an actual person.

And he was still an actual person for all the intelligence that Sitwell did have on the situation.

“WHO DID YOU SEND HIM AFTER?”

Both agents turned to see Bruce Banner standing there with green eyes visible. They paled when they realized that Stark had the entire team listening in and that Bruce had gotten upset for Natasha and maybe even Clint himself.

“Doctor Banner, you might want to…”

“Don't tell me to calm down. Who did you send Barton after? Whose safety would risk Barton's life for?” he demanded.

Natasha wanted to hug him.

Sitwell gulped, “Phil Couslon.”

Before Natasha or Bruce could make sense out of his answer, the rest of the team came barging in. Stark was irate shouting at them for being secretive assholes and he did not care if Coulson alive, if Barton was dead than he would kill Coulson himself.

Steve was kinder, saying he was glad the agent had a chance to survive but they should have told the team instead of just sending Barton out alone after him.

Bruce was still bright green.

Natasha was torn between thanking Sitwell and ripping out his throat.

Thor who might have been the most logical one of them all (not the most intelligent but definitely had a sound reasoning behind all his decisions) grabbed Sitwell by his neck.

“Agent Sitwell, I am very glad over this news. However, the Hawk is family and Son of Coul is not. How dare you think we would prefer him to go on his own for a friend when he is more than a friend to us,” Thor informed him grimly, “Should the Hawk not make it back, be forewarned the Avengers will never your organization of warriors again.”

Bruce ceased turning green and started panting when him and the Other Guy realized that Thor had taken care of what they both had wanted to do.

Natasha let out a sigh of relief.

“I'm going to suit up,” Tony announced.

Natasha looked at Sitwell sadly, “I know you did it for Clint. I'm glad you tried to help him like I asked.”

“I'm sorry it didn't turn out quite how you wanted it to,” Sitwell apologized, the grief on his face showing. He felt guilty beyond words but he knew the warrior in Natasha would forgive him even if the rest of her never would.

“If he dies though… if he's dead…”

“You'll never forgive me anyway, Agent Romanov. Don't pretend the outcome would be any different,” he replied.

“It's Black Widow or Natasha. I'm not an Agent anymore and neither is Clint. Don't ever forget that again.”

\----------

(June 2013- prior to Clint's departure)

At the core of them both, they were agents.

It was more than some secret identity they put on.

Clint was solider, Natasha a spy.

They were fundamentally at their cores these people. They had a life outside of this. A way of life which was completely different, habits, pleasures, fun that these two agents would never have in the field. They cooked and had a dog.

Sometimes Clint dreamed of children and Natasha of her fairytale wedding (not that she would admit to it but once or twice she had called actual wedding planners and invited them for coffee to discuss her options).

However, for all their normalcy part of it would always be just an act like the one Natasha gave to all her marks.

There was a small part of them that would always been agents of death. The people that got into fights with the CIA and the FBI over op rights. The ones that got nasty with bad guys over a domestic dispute they would have during the day.

The days spent apart, the days spent together in a shit-hole in Vietnam. The ones spent in a small space in the forest shooting blindly at dangerous drug lords.

Neither could forget it or just simply move on. Their relationship could move forward or backwards as a result of this shift. However, as people it was a part of them that froze in time just like Steve.

The difference was Natasha could bury the ice and keep going.

Clint's ice would drown in the same sea that Steve did and remain there a lot longer than seventy years.

\---

(August 2013)

The team bordered the private jet that Stark owned. It was not an ideal traveling option but not everyone could fly and frankly this was SHIELD's mess so borrowing one of their toys would be accepting it like a pardon. Natasha wasn't ready to forgive them quite yet.

Later, they all would when they had Barton but for now, it was better to act like they were completely rogue. If only to spare Fury's job and also to let them stew in their anger for a few days.

On the trip though all Natasha could think about is how much she would never miss being a spy. The ice had turned to water and lucky for Natasha, she could always swim.

And soon she would make Clint swim too. The ocean was bright and blue (with some emerald green too), vast and full of choices. Choices they never got to make before.

This time, Natasha would fucking hire a damn wedding planner. She would also stop taking birth control.

“Hey Stark?”

“Nat?” he asked taking her pet name from Clint, for once she didn't intend to stop him.

“Ask Pepper the names of some good wedding planners. I'm getting married in the fall.”

\------

(May 2011)

'What are we doing here?' Clint signed noticing it wasn't just an bakery but one that was strictly geared towards weddings.

There were wedding cakes everywhere.

The building was designed with white and silver. There were bells hanging and little frilly touches all over. This was where brides and their lapped down grooms went to try and buy food for their big expensive shindigs.

Clint was torn between being horrified and excited. Natasha never wanted it though. There wasn't any time and it was dangerous.

Not sure why but it was. Clint would not fight her on it. After all, he only wanted to get married if he got children. A childless marriage was redundant to him. They could just keep dating if that. It sounded slightly medieval of him but Clint only imagined getting married because he was going to be a father.

He saw little reason otherwise and he selfishly wanted to be married if he knocked someone up because he had read articles stating it was better for the child in the long run. Maybe medieval but Clint was a fan of studies on metal health and personal lifestyles.

Not that he wouldn't marry Natasha if she wanted but it seemed like she never really interested that it was just something she toyed with. Like a fun game. He just would not bother asking until there appeared to be real incentive for him to ask. Not necessarily a child but at least a hint that she took it more seriously than just window shopping for it.

'I wanted to try out some of the cake styles, see if there was any I liked,' she answered greeting the woman at the counter, “My fiancé is deaf but he can read your lips if you talk to both of us.”

They were served by a very middle aged woman that shared the stories of her clients and her own relationship with her wife.

They tried chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, and strawberry.

Clint liked the vanilla the best, Natasha the red velvet.

They compromised on marble cake with some red velvet flavored icing. They picked out silly decorations instead of a traditional bride and groom on the cake.

Natasha asked for the ordering booklet.

They thanked her and promised to be back for their dream cake.

Once outside the shop Clint grabbed Natasha's hand and they started to walk away, “Did you find the one yet?” he said finally speaking.

“I did but there's still more shops in the city to look at,” she replied knowing he couldn't hear her and his gaze was not on her.

After a minute of full silence, Clint shrugged feeling that there would be answer coming in his future, “Anywhere else you want to go?” Moving on without any prompting.

Natasha turned her gaze onto his sharply but with a hint of fear showing on them, “Can we go to Tiffany's?”

“Only if you want to pretend we have money that we'll never have,” he answered amused. Like they could afford to shop there.

She laughed and pointed to the bar that Clint often went to after a mission for some downtime. Tiffany's could wait… at least until they could find some drug dealer to steal a couple thousand dollars from.

\------

(June 2013)

Sometimes, Clint liked to pretend that he did not remember his life before the incident that led to the loss of his hearing. Sometimes he liked to make up scenarios of how his life was before it happened.

In these fake scenarios, Barton was a happy go lucky nomad musician. Every Saturday, he and his traveling band would play a new dive bar out in the middle of bumfucknowhere.

On Tuesdays, he would phone home to his mother-- she would complain about his bohemian lifestyle and ask how that girlfriend/bass guitarist of his was.

Clint would laugh and tell her he missed her and he had to go off again-- another exotic city, another trip into the unknown.

Of course, these were all just made up stories in his head. In reality, life before was anything but stable. Often it was disjointed, days shooting people in the middle of some country whose name he could barely spell, other days at home staring at a wall.

His only calls were to Couslon. No catching up was ever needed.

Occasionally there was some sex, some rock and roll, and should the occasion warrant it- a cigarette and a movie.

The reality and the fantasy had one thing in common though, they blocked out the truth of Clint's loss. In both these world's, Clint was normal regular hearing not so smart (which was far from true honestly) marksman not some deaf superhero.

Clint missed that life, well did until now.

Former S.H.I.E.L.D. Doctor (aka mad scientist/inventor) Reynolds was staring him through his cell and reminded Clint of why he went deaf in the first place.

Reynolds not directly responsible but if anyone had been, it was him.

\--

(August 2013)

“How the hell did this guy pass a psych eval?” Tony asked once on the plane looking at the file Natasha presented to the team.

“Are you sure this is who kidnapped Clint?” Steve demanded.

Natasha nodded, “He's the only logical explanation. Only a former agent would know the location of a secret base like that one. And he has a grudge against both Coulson and Barton.”

“The psych evaluation?”

“All agents are to take one but sometimes if someone is too important to the organization, their results however bleak are ignored. Emil Blonsky would have been one of the people automatically bypassed had the council gotten their way,” Natasha informed the team, “Incidentally Clint and myself were excused from even taking them.”

“So this guy actually passed at one point?” Bruce asked indicating to the file, “He seemed unstable even before working for SHIELD based on the readings.”

Tony snorted, “More like insane ramblings of a cracked inventor”

“Misgardians thought my Lady Jane to be mentally off balance,” Thor pointed out about her theories on his home.

Bruce shook his head, “No this not Doctor Foster's realistic predictions that people were skeptical about. This is straight forward bag full of cats crazy.”

“You understand this?” Steve asked them both looking over the readings.

They made little sense to the solider.

“Sadly,” Bruce mused, “This guy- Doctor Michael Reynolds-- well he sounds a lot like those crazy religious zealots that think the world will end in five months…”

“Yeah but only by his hand because you know he has more power than god,” Tony retorted.

Natasha sighed, “Fury and Coulson objected his hiring on many occasions to the council. They wouldn't hear of it and it's not like there's so many genius inventors running around. Reynolds had ideas on how to improve warfare to eliminate the need for torture and C4.”

“And replaced with ideas about forced mind control and sonic noise devices that can make people deaf,” Bruce pointed out grimly.

\------

(June 2013)

“You can just kill me and get it other with. I would rather be dead than listen to your insane prophesies-- no offense doctor,” Clint said with as much annoyance as possible.

Honestly, he would rather be tortured and be done with it.

Reynolds made Loki almost appear sane. Almost.

“Ah Agent Barton, you hurt my feelings,” he spoke in a calm almost jovial face as if talking to an old friend.

The man in his mid fifties had brown hair with little streaks of gray woven through it. He had a facial scar across his left cheek and deep gazing blue eyes. Eyes that reminded Clint of New Mexico to some extent.

He would accuse him of being held hostage by Loki but Reynolds was insane way before anyone had heard of Loki. No this crazy ass was working with humans only.

“You have feelings besides doom, gloom, and mass destruction?” Clint taunted.

Reynolds shook his head, “Barton, Barton you have me all wrong. I'm a scientist. It's my job to gather data and then test out the hypothesis.”

“You mean experiment on innocent beings and then kill them when you're done?” Clint offered.

“I would hardly call you innocent Agent Barton nor anyone else that works for SHIELD. It's organizations like them that will cause this world to end. You know it-- I know it. Look what happened with your alien friend. The world is becoming a dangerous place and we are being taken over by leeches from outer space. Death is the only answer,” he answered.

“And until then you'll just kidnap people and use them to experiment and make your dream weapon.”

“I'm insulted that you think that's the only reason why you're here,” Reynolds said with his hand over his heart as if he was a wounded boyfriend.

Clint sighed, dramatically rolled his eyes and stared at Reynolds, “By all means share your master plans with me. There's a movie joke in here somewhere but what the hell you're already on a roll. You only resemble half the cinematic nutjobs in film anyway.”

Reynolds made a tisk-tisk noise, “Come on surely you think I'm not that crazy?”

Clint snorted, “I don't know man, you were always stark raving mad to me. Very Doctor Frankenstein if you know what I mean.”

Reynolds slapped him and Clint coughed amused, that didn't even tickle. Some because of the drugs but mostly because Reynolds hit like a child.

“No more playing Barton. I tried to be civil but you couldn't play nice. Well Agent, maybe you will later after Johann comes in and does some of his finer work,” Reynolds replied only mildly tweaked.

Clint sighed, what these guys possibly do to him?

\----

(March 2007)

“That man is highly unstable Coulson, why the hell did we give him a job?” Clint asked after a mission, “Controlling agents minds through their dream cycles?!”

It was a chilly March out in Eastern Russia, five enemy agents had arrested. All had refused to talk, the inventor had eagerly come up with a plan to make them talk.

“The council wouldn't take no for an answer,” Phil replied somewhat disappointed and clearly dissatisfied by that truth.

“What the fuck is there problem? We get results just fine. So they ask us to hire a wackjob?” he demanded.

Coulson nodded, “Fury is waiting on him to snap but to be fair, he did just propose a good idea with minimal loss or injury. We're Americans we have standards to live up to-- Geneva Convention.”

“Like the council ever gave two shits about that,” Clint muttered bitterly.

“I don't like it anymore than you, Barton. The council will probably pat him on the back. Personally in my report, I will request suspension from the field but I can almost guarantee you that the council will ignore it and if Fury tries to enforce it, they will ask for his head.”

Doctor Reynolds had ignored SHIELD orders and taken civilians from the ground and began to experiment on them. In the end, he had failed to make a mind control drug and had created one that allowed him to essentially have a truth serum. The council would thrilled. All Phil and Clint would care about is how he tortured thirteen innocent people to make it. Enough that three had to die to create his drug and five had to be mentally institutionalized.

\----

(August 2013)

Steve finished reading the file, the part that included the missions Doctor Reynolds had been privy or apart of. All of them had one thing in common a highly unusual amount of casualties of both innocent people and field agents.

How did anyone express that to the family of the deceased agents?

“No one would fire him?”

“He was lucky, his ideas worked just enough to please the council and never went too far that they felt the need to act. Fury was irate but every time he tried, he was met with resistance from the council,” Natasha expressed.

“Were you there for that one about the mind control?” Bruce asked her timidly as if afraid to bring up bad memories.

“No,” she answered softly, “But I was there for the mission before that. Not much of a better outcome however as he had not did anything technically outside the books. There was no way to discipline him.”

“Barton was there correct?” Tony asked.

“As was Coulson,” she confirmed, “They were the ones that pushed for his immediate dismissal and Hill and I assisted with getting the council the agree.”

“Jesus those people,” Tony replied angrily, “They essentially let a terrorist in training hang out in the super secret spy base for ten years and then finally fired him only after some blackmail and espionage on your part Romanov.”

“SHIELD would definitely be a better place without them,” Natasha told him honestly.

“Something to consider working on after we save Barton,” Tony remarked.

Natasha tensed, she was trying not to worry the team but it had been eight weeks and she knew what kind of man Reynolds was. Not exactly an effective killer but he knew how to make someone's existence truly a traumatic experience.

“Is there anything else we need to know?” Steve asked after a beat.

“Yes, he's also the man that invented the weapon Clint used to take out his ear drums.”

\----

(September 2003)

Logically Clint knew the situation looked bad. There were dead agents everywhere. Civilians lying on the ground covered in bleed. Crying and screaming going on in the background.

The harsh whistling noise continued. It was a device used to cause extreme pain to ones ear drums. A way to distract even the most competent men in battle. Ear splitting, it made Clint want to cry himself.

However, there were still living people out here. The sound controlling mutant still could cause some serious damage. She had already forced men to kill themselves against their own free will.

She had gotten them to even smile while doing it.

The noise was a distraction so she could retrieve whatever that mental loving mutant boss of hers had told her to.

He was desperate to move, he found himself crawling on the ground. The only thing in his reach the experimental arrow created by doctor frankenstein.

He tried to aim for the device with the first arrow, it failed. The device she had planted on the ground was not easily struck. He had a single arrow left and he was rolling and screaming in pain himself.

Clint decided there was only one option to not only stop her toy but her power as well. If he couldn't her or it with the arrow. His best bet would be to temporarily shatter his own hearing. That way he could break it, fight her off, and end everyone's suffering.

So Clint stabbed himself with the arrow gently hitting the button on his bow to activate the secret inside, it would be enough to cripple him but not pierce the drum.

Unfortunately, the not so good doctor had failed to mention he designed it with shoot to kill only in mind even though he had been told to create something that would be somewhat disabling.

Granted he had never been told to use it or that it could be used on his ear drums but Clint knew whatever the doctor did was well beyond his orders because the second the arrow the got near him-- it was like an explosion had gone off inside his head.

All Clint heard was silence as his brain faded to black.

\----

(August 2013)

“What kind of arrows were they supposed to be?” Bruce asked looking over the file.

“They were meant to be disable sound waves hear-able to the human ears. Obviously going into the OP SHIELD and the agents on the team were aware that they were after a mutant that controlled sound waves. That she used maliciously to subdue people and commit crimes for the Brotherhood.”

“So it should have then only temporarily disabled Barton's ability to hear the screeching,” Tony assumed reading over the cliff notes by Agent Coulson.

“Right. Everything should have been fine. Clint saw it some sacrifice for the job. One of his own choosing. A chance to end the suffering. He saw it as doing the right thing. A decision none of us might have came to. We probably wouldn't have thought far enough ahead to use a special built arrow to end the noise,” Natasha explained, though perhaps her explanation over simplified the sacrifice or how dark it really was for Clint.

How badly he had been at the time of the incident.

“Instead it ripped out his ear drums and nearly killed him. A blow to the head would have been kinder,” Bruce remarked looking over the medical notes.

“Reynolds had thought they would kill the mutant. He hadn't known Clint would use them on himself-- obviously.”

“Did he even show remorse over the outcome?” Steve asked.

“Not really but it's not Clint went looking for someone to blame either. He mostly blamed himself,” she said with a hint of sharpness to her tone.

“But this guy still can claim he technically ruined Clint's hearing,” Tony pointed out, “To an insane egomaniac with a grudge, shit that probably gets him all turned on deep down.”

“Thank you for that creepy thought,” Bruce said dryly.

Thor had remained silent through their in-flight debrief. He vowed to himself if they saved Clint from this monster, that he would find a way to make sure this man paid with the power of Asgard behind him.

 

\----

(June 2013)

Clint logically knew there was no way that Agent Jasper Sitwell was a traitor or a double agent. He had known, hell been friends with Sitwell long enough to know that was not true.

He had been Coulson's pet project.

But how else could it be explained that doctor evil would know he had been sent on this mission? How else would have known what was in the medical wing at their base that he supposed to kidnap?

Who was giving the information?

Someone had to be pulling the megalomaniac's strings.

His team had done a great job. Barton was bleeding in his ears from where they had “tested” his hearing. Sick twisted ideas to cure his “disease” with the most painful results in mind.

Clearly Reynolds wanted to relish his handiwork or so he claimed was his handiwork. Honestly as far as Clint was concerned the douche bag was just the sick fuck that made the weapon, it was Clint's own hand that was responsible.

Or that's what he had to keep telling himself in order to keep the anger and pain in check. To show them meant to show Reynolds his weakness.

The aids were useless and now Clint's ears were bleeding, not that it mattered he couldn't hear anyway but by the time Reynolds is done he might never able to wear aids again either.

\---

_(May 1994)_

_“This isn't the life I wanted,” Clint said to the waitress fixing his coffee._

_“Preaching to the choir.”_

_Clint looked up at her steaming cup of coffee in hand, “At what point do you decide to change everything you've done?”_

_“In my experience or in the world according to the movies?” she asked._

_“That's matters?”_

_“Movies are a running gag on life, kid. They tell you everything about everything and still 90% of it isn't true. According to the movies, it's never too late to change,” she said wistfully._

_“And the truth?” he asked slowly._

_She shook her head, “You spend your entire life trying to change the one you got. Often, you never do.”_

(June 2013)

There's this theory at the end of your life, you picture the life you always wanted or maybe had in an alternate reality.

Sometimes, Clint wondered if that waitress- any waitress got to be so lucky. She might have discouraged him by saying that but deep down he understood that pain that belief. Others had it. It surprised him when his own life turned out nothing like that.

He wondered if this was punishment for living the life that had not been laid out for him. The starving broke criminal/artist. Maybe this was karma for everything good deed he did that maybe he never should have done.

If he was just tortured he would be fine. Being barely touched and then beaten severely than put back together only to be broken again was getting to him.

Clint was worried that for once Reynolds would get exactly what he wanted.

In his head, Clint dreamed that he was holding Natasha's hand on the deck of a boat, orange pink and purple colored sky above them. The waves crashing mildly around them-- their hands steady and strong molded together at peace.

Clint blacked out.


	4. Istanbul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quick but setting up a possible sequel finish
> 
> Clint and Phil are rescued, kind of
> 
> Loki's involvement is key
> 
> The game is on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will never be a sequel, that's just my long standing personal mockery speaking. One day I'll be talented enough to write a fic that requires one-- no I won't. That's not this, this is just a messy quick finish because I ran out of time. It was supposed be 50,000 words and well easier said than done.
> 
> This is where I put a bow on it and call it half-ass done.
> 
> Title is from They Might Be Giants song because I have a sense of humour.

(August 2012)

This wasn't exactly how he pictured waking up. Of course, it's not like he pictured that he would wake up.

The last thing Phil Coulson remembered was a bright blue. The last thing Phil Coulson remembered was Nick Fury standing above him.

Phil Coulson woke up in a white sterile room-- obviously on a base somewhere (no hospital was that sterile EVER) with no one there. He woke up wondering where he was and why wasn't he dead.

Logically there was no way that he should have survived that. None whatsoever. Nothing hurt either. It was the strangest thing. He would have blamed it on drugs if he felt as if he were floating.

Phil did not feel like he was floating.

No felt-- groggy but absolutely fine.

The fine was the bit that scared him shitless.

No one should feel fine after getting stabbing with some alien weapon that probably was incurable to the human race. So why the hell was he okay, breathing, and not be experimented on.

Or had already been?

Coulson heard the door open-- it wasn't Director Fury who walked through the door.

\----

(July 2013)

“Why am I still alive?” Clint asked the unknown guard treating his wounds.

By now, Clint should be dead. There was no way he could survive so much repeated experiments (projects that honestly were torture, because really were any of them realistic goals?). Endless. Physical and Mental. In fact, Clint had even caved in his own way.

He should be dead.

“Are you alive?” the pseudo nurse asked him wiping some blood off his chest from a procedure that left him surgically changed, “Perhaps you were brought back.”

Clint felt his eyes rolling in the back of his head, “I gave him everything! WHY AM I NOT DEAD?”

The nurse put the bloodied cloth in a waste basket.

“Because there's no valuable information to be had. This is just testing you. Making you better, stronger…”

No, it was killing him.

\----

(August 2013)

Clint Barton was more durable than Reynolds had assumed. Barton had never shown at least from what he saw to be very tolerant of pain or injuries.

Barton was a frequent guest of the medical wing and often was considered the biggest whiner. He wasn't smart nor the most physically impressive agent. The experiments should have killed him.

Barton had been virtually killed five times in the last two months and somehow still recovered. Reynolds was morbidly curious of the results. Another test would be warranted.

It was a shame however that he seemed to be incapable or too stupid to actually tell him where the other Avengers were. Where Iron Man was, where that giant green thing was. They would make fabulous experiments.

Iron Man had the technology he needed for his new master. And that giant rage monster? Well that was a deal he made with General Ross to get to Phil Coulson.

He had been warned to leave Barton be but one thing Reynolds would never forget was getting even with the guy that got him fired.

Fury would pay eventually, after he blew up the northern hemisphere. Phil Coulson would be experimental monkey until he finally got his hands on the tesseract than he would use Iron Man as his test dummy.

The giant would be killed and he would save the world. Free everyone from these so called heroes. Really all there were narcissists with alien technology, psychopathic monsters and hopeless pathetic patriots washed up and wishing for one last glorious battle.

Yes, Michael would show them all that he wasn't the crazy one. He would right the wrongs of this sick world and free everyone from SHIELD and their train wreck.

\----

_(June 2013- The dream world)_

_“I'm dreaming, right?” Clint asked looking over the water._

_Natasha tapped her right hand over their intertwined ones gently, “Hallucinating is more likely.”_

_“Shame, weather's perfect out there,” Clint added ruefully looking over the blue sea._

_“You're not dead,” she whispered almost as if she was thankful but timid like she asking to make sure._

_“I'm not, I promise. I know--,” he replied, “But I- I want to you know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I grieved the wrong way.”_

_“Didn't know there was a wrong way to grieve,” Natasha muttered._

_Clint shrugged looking above, it was turning dark. Funny the position of the sun had changed twelve hours in a matter of seconds. Natasha stopped holding his hand._

_“Coulson was my best friend but he wasn't you. He was never anywhere close to you. You have always been my number one priority in this life,” Clint swore._

_Natasha sighed, “I know. I just wanted to fix you. Fix us. Maybe I went about it the wrong way.”_

_Clint let out a bitter laugh, he was the one that screwed them up. Funny how even in his delusions Natasha tried to blame her lack of feeling on the issue when it was never her fault, “What if I don't survive this?”_

_“You have to.”_

_Clint felt tears prickling against his eyes, “Why what's waiting for me? You're not real. This isn't real. It's a dream at best, a hallucination at worst.”_

_Natasha gripped his hands again, this time with strength behind it. Purpose._

_“Because I'm right here waiting for you to come home. And I'm not alone. There are others waiting for you, Clint. Tony, Bruce, Steve, Thor-- we're all waiting for you,” she all but teared up saying._

_“Now I know I'm dreaming,” he said with a teary eyed laugh._

_“Why?”_

_“Because when I'm awake, you never cry.”_

Natasha woke up in a cold sweat. The clock read 3:06am-- she tried not to think about how that was the exact time she first found Clint shot on the floor in an op a few years ago in Argentina.

The feeling of dread wouldn't leave her the rest of the evening.

\----

(August 2013)

“Do you remember the face of the first person you ever killed?” Natasha asked looking over at Steve who was sitting there calmly on Stark's private plane.

“No,” he replied after a second, “Sometimes, I wish did though. Why do you ask?”

“I do-- I see him in my sleep more often than not. More frequently after stressful missions,” Natasha told him with an odd look on her face.

“Okay….”

“After the invasion, I saw him every night for a week,” Natasha began, “Then my dreamed changed.”

“Not a dream-- a nightmare probably,” Steve countered.

“Dreams-- Nightmares all the same deep down,” she said off handed, “After that, all I saw was Clint.”

“Good dreams?” he asked gently.

“About half the time. The other half were all of him dying,” she explained, “The night he left it was of him telling me that he was going to die or probably would not survive whatever mission he was on. I begged him to come back to us.”

Steve looked at her oddly in return, what was she saying? He found himself siting straighter, quicker to strike if need be, hands extending to possible hold or maybe even shake her should the need arise. To say this was alarming was an understatement.

“Did you predict this in your sleep that Clint would go missing?”

Natasha looked up at him haunted, “I don't know how Captain but I think I did.”

(August 2013- The dream world)

_Ten finger and ten toes- Phillip Barton was a perfect human being. Wrapped in a blue blanket sucking on air. Waiting for his mothers attention. Natasha half asleep next to him. Clint holding Phil like it was a miracle he was still there in his arms._

_“Is this what you dream of?” she asked him after a minute._

_Clint looked back at her, they were no longer in bed with a child but instead back over the sea._

_“Nah, I mean at times I think about it. It's just my sentimentality getting in the way of what's logical. Kids are great but god would we be awful parents,” he confessed looking back at her hand._

_She snorted, “True but sometimes I wish we could try.”_

_Clint shrugged, “Don't need one to be happy.”_

_Natasha looked down at the diamond ring on her finger. The one Clint never gave her-- the one she never asked for. She hinted at it or maybe taunted him as he liked to accuse her of. But really it was the deepest desire she had to own one. Her own shiny rock._

_“I know most of our dreams are bad. At times, they aren't. I dream of a little girl with you wrapped around her finger. I dream of a boy that looks just like you,” she confessed, “I dream of our wedding with family and friends.”_

_“Must be nice,” he replied, “I only dream you, me, and a beach.”_

_“This isn't real, right?” she whispered slightly horrified._

_Clint looked back at her and noticed that Natasha had gone pale, her eyes looked glossy almost fearful. Her gaze staring at him in wonder._

_Natasha never looked like that when he was awake._

_“No, it's not.”_

_“Are you dead?”_

_“No but I've been experimented on and on for two months straight,” he confessed like it was a dirty secret. That dream Natasha somehow had no idea what they did for a living, like she had never experienced that level of pain before. It was a lie of course but in his head, everything was normal. Their job, their lives even if they talked about real issues._

_It was the only thing he had to separate fact from fiction from at this point._

_“Clint?” she whispered, “I don't think we're dreaming…”_

Clint shot awake in his prison cell. What the fuck was happening to him?

\-----

(August 2013- The trip)

“Natasha?” Bruce asked leaning up when he saw her shocked expression waking up.

She looked over at him, and the others-- primarily Steve caught her attention.

“Did you have the dream again?”

“Not exactly,” she said slowly.

“Dream?” Bruce asked.

“I think we talked. He's been held hostage. He was used as Reynolds play toy but he appears to be less than shaken up by it,” Natasha answered slowly.

Tony was so glad JARVIS flew planes because if anyone had been controlling this thing, they would be probably diving down to the ocean right about now.

“Are you claiming Romanov that you actually had a discussion with Barton while sleeping…”

“That's exactly what I'm telling you happened.”

Thor however didn't seem even the least bothered by this news, “In Asgard lovers or close family members-- siblings sometimes connect to each other in their most vulnerable times. Perhaps this works for you now as well.”

The others turned to him.

“Loki,” he said after a minute.

“He was in Clint's and Dr. Selvig's head only,” Natasha countered.

“Yes but you are connected to the Hawk and so if Loki left that connection behind,” Thor pointed out.

The others sat there dumb founded. Had Loki really left Clint the ability to talk to Natasha in their sleep?

There might be an easier way to pull off the rescue mission if it were true.

“Well assuming it is true, I think that would be rather dangerous. Natasha, you should try some sleeping pills or maybe not sleeping until we find Clint,” Steve suggested worried.

He could only imagine how far this “gift” of Loki's might extend. What if she could she start feeling his nightmares or getting hurt in dreams because Clint was? What did Thor know beyond the existence of said bond? Was it even real? Maybe he was wrong entirely. Maybe this some other magical disaster waiting in the wings.

Tony however seemed to think the exact opposite and Natasha apparently agreed. Tony caught her eye and noticed they lined up perfectly, “Take a nap Romanov see if Bird Boy noticed maybe where he was taken. He seemed to be pretty smart about that kind of thing.”

\-----

(May 2012)

Thor had taken Loki away. Loki was gagged when he first left Misgard but the moment they arrived home he was freed. Upon arrival into the home of their father's Loki erupted into hysterical laughter.

“Do you think it over, brother? Do you think this is last they've heard of me? Someday when you do figure out a return path to that pathetic little planet let me know how Agents Barton and Romanov are doing, won't you?” Loki said in-between cackles.

Their father looked down at his son with disgust. Thor could only look troubled. What had Loki done?

(August 2013)

Perhaps, he should tell her the whole story. Thor was worried however that it might upset the Widow to give her such details. Loki had clearly left a piece of himself behind intentionally. For what purposes Thor had little to no idea but whatever the reason it had changed Barton.

Quite possibly forever. Didn't she deserve that truth? Shouldn't she know that this would be unfixable? Whatever he did.

Thor wished he could ask Loki but it was impossible for his brother was now dead. Unreachable in the walls of their gods experiencing perhaps a new life for himself happy within the halls filled with wine and good cheer. Something Loki never had in this life.

“Thor, what aren't you saying?” Natasha asked him, he should have expected it. He found the Widow was very intelligent and also extremely perspective like his brother had been.

“If Loki has changed him, he might not be able to fixed. My brother is dead and only he could undo anything spell or power exchange he may have left behind instead the Hawk's mind,” Thor confessed.

“Oh fuck,” Tony swore.

“Wait, we're assuming whatever he did was necessarily evil,” Steve said holding up his hand in protest.

“It's Loki, are you kidding me?” Tony interjected.

“My brother wasn't always so twisted,” Thor insisted.

“Guys! Guys! We don't know anything for sure yet. Why panic prematurely?” Bruce offered as a peace keeper.

Natasha slammed her fist on her chair making everyone jump and turn toward her, “Right now, I don't care. If I can talk to Clint. I'll take whatever sick or maybe even helpful gift that Loki left behind. After this is over, I'll worry about the rest.”

\----

(August 2013- where the beginning meets)

“Barton? Barton? CLINT!”

Clint forced himself awake he was covered in blood and sweat in a jail cell that smelt like piss and gunpowder residue. Part of him thought he must be seeing things but the other part, the part that wanted to believe he was still alive and somewhat well knew otherwise.

It didn't stop him from saying his anyway, “Coulson?”

Clint looked up, he could barely hear by now. Everything was fuzzy or completely silent. Coulson was there standing in front of him.

Alive.

Why was he alive?

“What's going on?”

Coulson started to unlock his bonds, “I got better, punched Reynolds out.”

“He's working with someone. This is way too organized for just him,” Clint pointed out.

He had narrow minded focus, this guy. His main focus was science, deadly science but anything else seemed to be either un-important or things that went beyond his intellectual realm.

“We'll talk after we figure out how to get out of here,” Coulson said looking down at Clint's legs just to make sure, “What did they do to you?”

“A better question is what didn't they do?,” Clint muttered.

“How bad?”

“Not bad enough that I can't escape with you.”

Phil looked up to the sky, “There's a plane approaching…”

Clint looked up. He had that feeling again, one that maybe his dreams weren't dreams after all…

“Natasha, she and the team are waiting for us. They're on the plane.”

\----

(In Gaza, same day, same time)

“Clint said they were in secluded spot probably near the airport but not too close,” Natasha informed them, “He said he could make out the vibrations and the low sound of air flights above them.”

“And if he wasn't deaf that means they would probably be in full hearing range,” Bruce reasoned.

“Correct.”

“What should we look for exactly? I haven't exactly had experience breaking and enter dressed as Captain America before,” Steve mentioned.

“What about the HDYRA base in 1944?” Tony asked cheekily

Steve coughed, “I wasn't counting that. It was war, prisons were a dime a dozen in Germany.”

Natasha looked at a tourist map she grabbed on the hike from the city, “Has to be bigger than a warehouse but not big enough to alarm the residents. So about the size of a mosque.”

Tony stared at her, “Mosque's have standard sizes?”

Natsasha rolled her eyes.

“What is this mosque you speak of?” Thor inquired.

“Uh don't worry about it big guy. It's just one of those weird religious things that are better left unexplained.”

Bruce shot Tony a dark look, “Complicated but basically we're looking for something probably old looked unused or at the very least worn out or near break down. Large but not square because then it might resemble a prison too much which would cause negative attention from the locals.”

“This is Gaza, do you really think a prison would be out of place?” Tony asked sarcastically.

“This is why middle easterners hate Americans,” Natasha muttered.

“Incidentally they also hate each other. Or at least Israel.”

“What do you think Reynolds did to him?” Steve asked.

“I'd rather not,” Natasha retorted looking down at the map of the city.

They were now running through the city, people moving out of the way, shouting at them in Arabic based languages. Enemies and allies- impossible to tell one from the next.

They just ran.

\----

“I've been dreaming of you for months,” Clint remarked, “What happened?”

Phil was carrying Clint by his left leg as they tried to make their way to a door.

“I woke up in our medical base in Iceland. I thought I might be dead. They transferred me to Germany when I was a little more healthy. I woke up again in Reynolds hand. For months he seemed to be testing my mind. Experimenting with it. Loki had to done something when he stabbed me that Reynolds somehow knew about because that seemed to be the focus on his little pain games.”

Clint blinked, “Wait were both hit with Loki's staff… I've been dreaming you and Natasha. I talked to you and her…”

Phil looked sharply at him in surprise, “You think Loki accidentally gave us the powers that Reynolds always wanted to create?!”

“Make sense wouldn't it?”

\--

That was right when their luck and the teams luck ran out. Reynolds army for hire came in guns blazing. Clint was no shape to carry a weapon.

Coulson only had a hand gun he took from the guard.

Reynolds was missing.

The team was over powered and out gunned until Bruce hulked out however.

“We need…”

“Cap, I got this…”

Bruce felt his body rip apart, anger filling him, and then mindlessly he attacked.

Tony started to blast the bad guys with his built in guns. Steve had taken to punching his way through to the entrance. Natasha had been trying to pick the lock to the front steel door.

“CLINT! COULSON!”

Thor ran up carrying his hammer, Steve returned to help Iron Man and the Hulk.

“Allow me”

Natasha ducked as his hammer threw lightning to the door, sparks flew and both jumped out of the way when the door started to dent.

Thor repeated the actions again and again.

“That wouldn't have worked with actual electricity,” Natasha noted with amusement, Thor sometimes had the best power.

“As long as we free our fellow warriors none of it matters Warrior Queen.”

Phil came charging through when he noticed the door was about to fall, half carrying Clint with tons of men behind them with guns.

“TASHA, DUCK!” he shouted once they were free, gunfire went off.

Natasha grabbed Clint's arm.

“Did we really met up in my dreams?”

Clint looked at her, “Honestly, I think they were mine.”

Thor looked between them, “Now warriors might not be the time to understood what has transpired.”

The Hulk's roar was coming closer.

'Let the big guy handle this?' he signed to her.

Natasha nodded and pulled Coulson and Thor to safety.

\----

(Hours later)

Doctor Reynolds had once tried to create a drug that would allow him a chance to control people's minds via their sleep cycle. To get inside their head while they slept until he could take over their thought process and their dreams entirely.

Loki had used his magic to create a staff that would allow him to control people through stabbing them in the heart. It would enter their brains and take away their ability to ignore orders (but not take away their spirit or moral inclinations).

When Loki had stabbed Phil Coulson, a subject had been born.

Reynolds had been in New York when Loki was in the city. Loki had taunted Thor.

Eight months later, Phil Coulson was in Reynolds hand projecting his dreams unto Clint. Telling Clint he was in pain and need of help. Projecting old memories to his sleep cycle.

Five months after that Clint began dreaming of Coulson and Natasha probably not of his own free will (and of Coulson's desire for him to feel what Coulson felt).

So when Reynolds got Clint, he already knew what steps he had to take to try the same result. Instead he got a better one. Coulson could only project ideas and memories.

But Barton could visit their dreams, talk to them, and actually control what happened within this realm.

Reynolds knew that because of the experiments on Clint. Clint knew it because he had experienced the medical procedures.

Loki was somehow behind this, why else would Reynolds know how to do this? Where to find Coulson and Barton?

Who else could trick someone into getting the location of a secret base?

“Do you have any proof of this?” Thor demanded.

It was a tall order to assume that Loki not only was alive but in control of this entire situation. How could go so far just to get back at the two men he tried the hardest to destroy? Wouldn't he go further?

“No but sure as fuck does it make sense,” Tony replied.

“He escaped too. He wasn't there,” Steve pointed out.

Thor looked at them, “If you are truly correct then the world is in trouble. My brother is loose with a way to possibly control humanity through their sleep.”

“I know that's what worries me too,” Natasha whispered clutching Clint's hand a little harder.

It was something to worry about in the future but right now, she selfishly was just glad they were going home.

\-----

(Epilogue)

(September 2013)

“I didn't fail, I have the serum. I can make us an army,” Reynolds whispered to the god standing before him. He was kneeling holding a vile of orange liquid.

“Well at least you aren't completely useless. You let them escape,” Loki hissed.

“But-But I couldn't take them on! The Avengers…”

Loki scoffed, “You are pathetic and your nearsighted need for revenge almost ruined everything. Luckily for you, Agent Barton really did hold the key. He indirectly saved your life. This time, I'll handle him and the team. You just make my army of slaves.”

\--

Coulson was alive. Clint had his best friend back. Natasha had boyfriend back. Well now husband.

Stable… sort of.

Their relationship wasn't instantly fixed with a wedding but they got married right after they landed just like Natasha told Stark they would. Quick justice of the peace ceremony. Cake after, some mexican food, and Stark personally bought her a Tiffany's ring.

Clint and Natasha spent their supposed honeymoon working out their issues with retirement..

And having sex on every surface imaginable.

Barton was now a mind reader… in his sleep and others. Frequently he now invaded people's dreams. Stark's, Banner's, whoever he wanted. Talked. Played games.

Lived various fantasies.

It still weirded him out. Coulson had explained S.H.I.E.L.D. was trying to work on a cure. Clint kind of liked being able to hear his girl's pleasure in his dreams in a way he couldn't in real life.

He liked having control back in his life. But the dreams also served as a warning.

Loki was alive and he was coming for them.

Barton didn't know when, but he could be ready for it.

\----

Things changed since Clint got back. Natasha no longer had weekly night outs with friends. Instead they had family nights every Friday. Movies, clubs… skiing… racing expensive cars. They did it all.

Clint and her used sex as a band aid at first, the dreams however made their communication so much better.

Selfishly Natasha liked the accidental ability Loki had given them (and probably was going to destroy them over, but Natasha and the team was ready).

Clint's ability had extended to their dreams too, their sex life was overly active. So much that now that Natasha was pregnant.

She was fucking terrified.

The next step would be to tell Clint and hope they were ready for when Loki and Doctor Reynolds came knocking.

Until then, it was telling him about the plus sign.

**Author's Note:**

> Final side note- with sign language there are words and finger spelling— sometimes when words don’t exist like nightmares (it might but in this case it doesn't) some cultures they do, some they don't... it would depend entirely on the word))- you would sign two words like say: bad dreams or finger spell. There’s also no grammar so the ‘’ are basically to show its a generalization not an actual. It's posted with '_' for non-speaking visual communication. Also, I'm not deaf but I do know a reasonable amount (most basic communication-- some more slang/advance) BSL so a lot of the stuff/references-- good/bad/ugly are from limited knowledge I have even though I've interacted with plenty of deaf people.
> 
> The timeline goes from May 2002 (When Clint joined SHIELD in this verse) to August 2013 where he’s found after being captured; Natasha’s career at SHIELD starts in 2005.


End file.
